WWE Advised To Send Gunther Home & Let Contract Expire In One Scenario

Gunther is someone who takes a lot of pride in his craft as a wrestler and a representative of WWE.

Despite his on-screen heel persona, he is revered for his in-ring discipline and skills. Even The Undertaker offered him high praise by naming him as the one person he would like to wrestle if he were to come out of retirement.

The Ring General retired two wrestlers in 2025, even accomplishing the unthinkable, when he made John Cena tap out to his chokehold.

He is currently involved in a feud with AJ Styles, who revealed last year that 2026 would be his final year as an in-ring competitor.

The 38-year-old got under the skin of The Phenomenal One by constantly gloating about his victory over Cena, claiming he made him tap out like a b**ch.

The two superstars fought in the main event of the January 12 episode of WWE Raw, where Styles made Gunther tap out, but the referee did not see it.

On last week’s taping of the red brand, Styles confronted the Austrian wrestler, challenging him for another match at the Royal Rumble. Gunther said he would accept the fight only if the 48-year-old put his career on the line, which was confirmed later.

WWE Blasted Over Mishandling Of Gunther’s Latest Storyline

Ex-WWE writer Vince Russo believes the storyline between Gunther and AJ Styles is all over the place.

A few days ago, in a now-deleted social media post, Shinsuke Nakamura shared a transcript of his conversation with Styles, where the latter confirmed that he would retire at the Royal Rumble.

This spoiler was a major PR setback for the Stamford promotion, telling the Japanese star to delete it.

On the latest episode of The Coach & Bro podcast, Jonathan Coachman and Russo discussed the possibility of WWE swerving the audience by purposely asking Nakamura to share the post online before asking him to delete it.

Russo stated that if that was the plan, then they might as well send the Austrian back home permanently.

Jonathan Coachman: I had somebody else say today, “What if they’re swerving you? And what if AJ is going to beat Gunther?” And I said, “That’s even worse!”

Vince Russo: A thousand times worse. If you do that, you might as well just send Gunther home and just let his contract expire. He’ll never come back from that. [48:56 onwards]