Retired star saddened by Ilja Dragunov’s WWE exit

Last week reports began swirling around that Ilja Dragunov had exited WWE ending his seven year association with the company. Among those taken aback by the move, AJ Styles expressed sadness at the situation. 

On the latest edition of The AJ Styles Show the Hall of Famer stated he was unaware of the reason behind Dragunov’s decision to let his WWE contract expire. 

“I don’t know anything about it. I know that I’m very sad about this situation. I enjoy his work very much. So I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t say much about it because again you’d think I’d know. I work for the company, but my place is in the coaching and the talent and little things to hopefully help make WWE better and build that foundation for them with the younger talent and stuff like that. So, I don’t know what was going on. I just know ‘Holy crap’. That’s about all I know.”

He added that Dragunov is the only person to give insight into what influenced his decision while claiming that he was ‘awesome’. 

“We’re gonna have to have to wait and see what he says about the situation when he’s able to talk about it. Then we’ll all know the truth because we can speculate everything at what this is. The truth is we don’t know. I’ll be the first one to tell you I thought the guy was awesome.”

Dragunov transitioned from NXT UK to the main brand after the merger in 2022. He debuted on Raw in 2024 but not too long after was an official member of SmackDown where he won the United States Title in October 2025 from Sami Zayn. He held the championship for a couple of months until Carmelo Hayes ended his reign in December.