Ilja Dragunov on His Reason Why He Brought Back His Original Entrance Music In AEW & When He Thought About Leaving WWE

As noted before, Ilja Dragunov made his official debut for AEW at last Saturday’s WrestleDream 2026 event and made his official AEW in-ring debut at this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Coral Gables, Florida.

A recent episode of The Ariel Helwani Show featured Dragunov as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Dragunov’s thoughts about his reasons why he brought back his original entrance theme song he used in the indies called “Soviet March” for his wrestling career in AEW.

“Because it’s putting together so many layers of my persona. I’m Russian-born but German-raised, and I have a lot of roots through to my German side of culture, but also to my family Russian side. And in the beginning, of course, when you try to find your own persona in professional wrestling, everybody was portraying me, of course, when I started, like, okay, you’re the Russian, so we need Russian music

But I love classical music, so it has this classical vibe, but it also has this other vibe, and it’s also very heavy. And it also just fits so perfectly with my over-the-top, artsy, orchestra-composer-like persona. It fits just all the boxes. So if you hear this music, it exactly tells you how I perform.”

Dragunov also gave his thoughts about how his entrance presentation was developed collaboratively with AEW.

“That is the best part about this, that since the work has begun, it has been always a collaboration. It has been always working together. So all the ideas that came from the company side and all the ideas that I had in my mind creatively were just flowing so well into one another

That was such a beautiful procedure to work. And even just to get one little detail, that was one that touched my heart the most, is that even the entrance music, that it was possible to get this specific entrance music.”

Dragunov also gave his thoughts about how his original entrance song remained an important part of his journey through European wrestling before he joined WWE.

“This guided me through the youngest, youngest years to my biggest moments that put me on the platform in Europe, got me to the United Kingdom, got me to the States. So much of my career is based on that music. And when I heard this music and did my entrance on Saturday at WrestleDream, I felt like a child again in the business. And I was craving this feeling for a very, very long time.”

Dragunov also gave his thoughts about when he first thought about leaving WWE leading to his departure this past August after he did not renew his contract.

“After I tore my ACL, I was fortunate to win a championship straight back on my comeback, which was an amazing moment for me that I still cherish. After I dropped the belt, things went into directions where I feel like it could’ve been better and more time to go into a story or something outside of holding a championship. Around April, maybe even a month before that, I was already just thinking about it. It never changed anything about my work because I love what I do and I make every minute count, but we all have feelings and we all want to devote ourselves to this, but I know it’s part of the business. I wouldn’t change that.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com, Fightful.com