There are 5,200 miles between the capitals of Thailand and Austria. Very little is shared between the 2 international locations’ cultures; every has its own distinct histories, languages, and artwork. But they do have not less than one factor in widespread: Each has produced a devastating opponent who’ll smash your afternoon for those who make a easy misstep. In Thailand’s case, it’s Capcom’s turbo terror, part-time crime boss, and full-screen scrambler, the original final boss: Sagat. You stand back? Fireballs to the neck and knees! You rush in? Tiger Knee on to the noggin. AND IF YOU JUMP? A Tiger Uppercut is ready to tuck your scalp into your shoulder blades. There’s no proper transfer, no proper method, no regret. In a clear signal of gamesmanship, Austria would produce its own unstoppable, incalculable combatant 10 complete days earlier than the world first fought in the road—the Ring General everyone knows as Gunther.
It’s virtually midday on a Tuesday. I haven’t checked in with anybody to see if the man’s OK, however I’ve seen the images: Finn Bálor’s chest and shoulders seem like a half-cooked Totino’s Party Pizza after he took a thorough beatdown in the earlier evening’s fundamental occasion of Raw. On the flip facet, his opponent sits in a brightly lit convention room, hair freshly cut and completely parted, his fitted black tee wanting like an limitless cave towards the all-white partitions behind him. He’s grinning, not with the boastful smirk of overconfidence, however with the seen understanding of one other job effectively performed. Gunther is as calculated as he’s assured, and each accomplishment to date has been towards one goal: to show the world that there’s no one on the market doing professional wrestling like he does.
Wrestling strikes might be efficient and thrilling with out being sophisticated and contrived (see Samoa Joe’s tried-and-true defense towards top-rope flying assaults), and with Gunther, they will set the tone for whole evenings. The sleeper maintain—the transfer you’d by no means use in 2K however at all times use in your little cousin—would appear to have little or no place in right this moment’s high-octane, big-budgeted WWE. But this previous Monday evening, its fixed utility from all angles put WWE’s inaugural Universal champion out, no dinner, no bathe, no bedtime story. “It depends on the opponent,” Gunther says, pondering of the numerous methods he’s ended evenings for thus many of his friends. “[With me and Bálor], there’s a difference in height and weight. So putting a sleeper hold on him and putting my whole weight on his back is a very logical thing, while lifting him up and giving him the chance to use his athleticism to escape or counter that is less [logical]. So that was my approach to it. That’s how I usually go about all the matches I have.” In a world constructed on forgoing rhymes and forsaking purpose, Gunther stresses the perform of realism, which is why many of his strikes—sometimes labeled as transition strikes—are likely to transcend. He’ll take your head off with a lariat or violate your vertebrae with a powerbomb or a Boston crab, and that’s it. No dramatic kicking out, no charging up, no surviving and thriving; it’s a wrap, thanks for coming, see you quickly.
Necessity may be the mom of invention, however ardour breeds aesthetic excellence. This totally realized world killer wasn’t born in a single day—it’s been a decades-long journey for Gunther to get to this place. Gunther performed soccer till he was 16, however even whereas he was honing his goalkeeping abilities, he was watching and absorbing the jarring, deliberate grappling fashion popularized by All Japan Pro Wrestling all through the Nineteen Nineties. “[That was a very] sports-focused presentation. I think that just stuck with me because I could really identify with that,” Gunther explains earlier than itemizing legends he would examine when watching All Japan. “[Kenta] Kobashi, [Toshiaki] Kawada, Stan Hansen, Terry Gordy, Gary Albright,” Gunther declares. “I think if the educated fan watches my matches, [they] can pretty much pick [up on] a lot of the things I do.” Trainer Michael Kovac (who competed all through Austria and Germany on the newbie event degree) would emphasize making every little thing look as hard-hitting as attainable, regardless of system or imprint. “I was just taught that way from the get-go,” Gunther states.
There’s nothing like a profitable streak in sports, wrestling, or life. That feeling of sustained success is just matched by the brand new avenues it will possibly open for you. Gunther would initially problem (and defeat) Ricochet for the WWE Intercontinental Championship on the June 10, 2022, episode of SmackDown. The latest piece on the board, he appeared poised for a stable run of good-to-great matches after which a transition into one thing else, like most high prospects earlier than him. What Gunther truly put into movement was probably the most outstanding run the championship has seen to date, each in the standard of matches and in the right improvement of a high-caliber expertise. He’d maintain the title for 666 days, defending it towards all-time abilities akin to Shinsuke Nakamura, Sheamus, and Drew McIntyre whereas shining a mild on the solo acts of profession tag staff wrestlers akin to Chad Gable and Jey Uso. But with all of the shared “match of the year” nominations and particular person accolades, there’s one feud during that run that stands proud to him probably the most: the one which gave him a probability to see simply how far he’d come in his profession.
“I would say the matches I had with Miz were something that was very important for me,” Gunther says. “Miz is the total opposite of me. It’s 100 percent the other side of professional wrestling than I am. I was really proud of the matches we had to get to those really competitive, dramatic matches. … The people ate it up. They were there for it.” It isn’t simply their in-ring work that makes Gunther maintain their feud in high regard; it’s how Miz pressured Gunther to develop his promos. “Miz was a fantastic counterpart because he’s one of the best in doing that ever on the microphone. He’s maybe the most versatile talent the company has. That was a big challenge for me.” In actual time, it was clear we have been seeing one thing particular. That run, with all these unimaginable moments, doubtless reached its apex final yr at WrestleMania 39, in Gunther’s Triple Threat protection towards McIntyre and Sheamus. The reign achieved a becoming finish when Sami Zayn obtained his greatest main-roster singles victory, bringing Gunther’s Intercontinental title run to a close in Philadelphia at WrestleMania XL. For Gunther, it’s method simpler to replicate on that reign than it was to expertise it. While he is aware of the standard of his work, it’s nonetheless a work in progress. “When you’re in the midst of it, when you are the guy doing all of that, it’s way less exciting for yourself than it is for everybody else watching.”
In his thoughts, this run, and any run at this degree, was by no means in the playing cards. After a failed 2012 WWE tryout (“horrible,” Gunther admits), he spent his childhood competing underneath his given first identify (stylized as WALTER) in Britain’s Revolution Pro and Progress promotions and continued to be one of the vital cogs in Germany’s Westside Xtreme Wrestling (stylized as wXw). He credit his time at wXw (and studying the business facet of professional wrestling) because the doubtless purpose WWE took a re-evaluation his method. “We just really started to professionalize the operation we had going there. We had a lot of people coming over that used to work in WWE or had a big career, just to feed off their knowledge. Then the shows got better, and to somebody that’s in the business and he’s observing companies and how they run their business, it’s pretty easy for them to understand what the approach is.” Toward the top of the 2010s, he’d grow to be a mainstay on the North American unbiased scene, along with his Evolve and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla dates giving him reps towards the expertise he’d face later on, akin to Adam Cole and the former Jonah Rock. Even after signing his WWE deal in late 2018, he anticipated to compete solely on the NXT degree towards acquainted competitors. “I never saw myself being on the main roster,” Gunther explains. “I always felt like I’m not going to fit in there.” Gunther’s wrestling fashion was unfamiliar, not solely to followers who hadn’t seen his work, but in addition to those that had seen different wrestlers transfer into the WWE system. There’s at all times this worry that your favourite band will lose their edge, that they need to conform to what’s secure or acceptable as soon as they signal their main deal. Gunther says he has by no means been requested to be anybody however himself at any of his WWE stops to date. “Nobody ever in WWE told me to change anything,” he says. “Nobody does [what I do] better than me. And that’s what I have to offer. I’m not that wrestler that comes out of this system that something doesn’t work, and next week I have a new character; that won’t happen in my case because I’m myself.” And that was Gunther’s greatest impediment: He didn’t know if it was attainable to be himself and make it to the principle roster.
Once the chance grew to become a actuality, Gunther made his first actual stylistic determination: to vary his physique. He’d emulated a lot of what the Kawadas and Gordys of his youth championed, from their sheer physicality to their imposing dimension and power, so the concept of dropping pounds and firming by no means struck his trainers, producers, or bosses. He was seeking to create one thing new for a brand-new viewers. “[The hard-core viewers], they totally get that romantic wrestling aspect about a beer-belly guy that just beats people up because it’s just been the case in Japan for so long,” Gunther explains. “I always thought that wouldn’t transcend well with the audience that you can reach on the main roster, where it’s literally just in the eye of the mainstream public. I just wanted to bring the best version of myself.”
Following his record-setting reign with a King of the Ring victory, Gunther earned an computerized shot at Damian Priest’s World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam. He’s been at or close to the apex many occasions, whether or not it’s as the highest champion of the most well liked unbiased promotion, the ruler of the whole lot of NXT UK, or the final man eradicated from the Royal Rumble match. But, now, he’s getting into rarefied air. He’s after a championship that’s a non secular successor to the world titles of Jim Crockett Promotions, NWA, and WCW, which he adopted by way of All Japan. So, whereas every little thing up till now has virtually been anticipated, the prospect at this championship has Gunther hyper-focused and hyperaware.
“Well, if I win it, it’s going to be the greatest accomplishment of my career,” Gunther proclaims. “It means that’s what it says, the ‘world’s heavyweight champion.’ I think that’s the highest prize, the greatest prize that there is to achieve or to win.”
“We all do [this] to become a champion eventually one day and be on top and represent the company and be the face of a brand and be the face of professional wrestling to a certain degree. And that’s a big responsibility but also [a] big privilege. But that’s all secondary now, because I have a match on Saturday against Damian Priest, and that’s where my focus is.”
Sign up for the
The Ringer Newsletter