Gunther has been on the run of a lifetime ever since winning the Intercontinental Championship just over two months after debuting on the WWE main roster. Amidst regular defenses against the likes of Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, Braun Strowman, and Tommaso Ciampa, The Ring General has gone on to become the longest-reigning Intercontinental Champion in history when his reign surpassed 454 days and ended The Honky Tonk Man’s 35-year record.
His success across Raw and SmackDown came as a surprise to many who believed the 36-year-old did not fit the prototypical look of a WWE star – as Gunther himself has previously admitted he tried to emulate the look of Vader, Stan Hansen, Scott Norton, and other large heavyweights of Japanese wrestling’s past – and believed he’d fit better in more wrestling-focused promotions rather than the sports entertainment of WWE.
It seems Gunther himself agrees as during a recent interview with Steve Fall of WrestlingNewsCo, he detailed why he actually hated WWE during the early days of his in-ring career!
“When I grew up, as a wrestler and not as a kid, when I was wrestling and diving in deep and trying to get better, I kind of despised WWE at that point because I didn’t like watching it,” Gunther revealed. “I was focused on ‘I want to be a wrestler and I want to focus on the athleticism.’ Everything around it was too much for my personal taste.
I think in the internet wrestling bubble during the time, there was a sentiment towards the company that ‘probably right now it’s not really good and we don’t enjoy it. For me, this was always like the embodiment of that era, that feeling that I had.”
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