WWE Legend Admits Problems With Gunther’s Booking: “I Just Don’t Know What We’re Trying To Do”
A former opponent of WWE’s Gunther has admitted that the Austrian might not be being used properly.
For most of his WWE career, Gunther has been known as “The Ring General” because to him, the mat is sacred. Over the last year, he added the “Career Killer” nickname as well.
The reason for the “Career Killer” nickname is that Gunther beat WWE Hall of Famer Bill Goldberg, the legendary John Cena, and Hall of Famer AJ Styles in their final WWE matches. For those three men, only Styles was in a match where, if he lost, he had to retire. Goldberg and Cena were retiring anyway, but WWE chose to have Gunther as their opponent.
Recently, Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer claimed that the booking of Gunther has been WWE’s biggest flop of the year since he has failed to win the WWE TItle on multiple occasions, and is facing SmackDown GM Nick Aldis at SummerSlam.
“I honestly think the biggest flop of this entire year has been the follow up to Gunther retiring all these guys. He loses to Cody, then he loses to Cody twice in one night and now he’ll be facing a GM at SummerSlam.”
At WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event in New York City, Nick Aldis cost Gunther and Sami Zayn their tag team match against CM Punk and Cody Rhodes when Aldis surprisingly broke up a Gunther pin attempt and then hit Gunther with the WWE Title. The Punk and Rhodes team would go on to capitalize for the win.
One day later at a SummerSlam Kickoff Show, Aldis and Gunther argued on stage again, so WWE’s Chief Content Officer, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, made it official for SummerSlam with Gunther facing Aldis, who will be having his first match in a WWE ring after signing with the company three years ago.
AJ Styles Reacts To Statement About How Gunther Has Been Used In WWE
On a recent episode of his Phenomenally Retro podcast, AJ Styles gave his take on Gunther being the biggest flop in WWE in terms of booking.
“I can see where you’re coming from, I do, but what do we do? We can’t just have him retiring people, that’s not going to work, but there’s always the chance that he could.
I just don’t know what we’re trying to do, like he can’t retire everybody he wrestles.
Is that the one thing we don’t have right now, a heel champion? In the matches that we have, we’ve still not got a clear heel.
With Seth (Rollins) and Roman (Reigns), there’s no clear heel there. With (CM) Punk and Cody (Rhodes), no real heel there. These guys are huge stars, but I wouldn’t say they’re hated heels. GUNTHER is a hated heel.”
The next WWE PLE is SummerSlam on August 1 & 2 from U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Here’s the lineup so far:
- WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Roman Reigns (c) vs. Seth Rollins
- Undisputed WWE Championship: CM Punk (c) vs. Cody Rhodes
- Hell in a Cell Match: Oba Femi vs. Brock Lesnar
- Women’s World Championship: Liv Morgan (c) vs. Iyo Sky
- Intercontinental Championship: Penta (c) vs. Chad Gable
- LA Knight, Royce Keys & Solo Sikoa vs. The Usos – Jimmy & Jey Uso and Jacob Fatu
- Interim WWE Women’s Championship Ladder Match: Tiffany Stratton vs. Jade Cargill vs. three other women
- Gunther vs. Nick Aldis
You can watch SummerSlam, a special two-night event, STREAMING LIVE on Saturday, August 1, and Sunday, August 2, at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT on the ESPN App with an ESPN Unlimited plan in the United States and on Netflix internationally.