AJ Styles thinks WWE mishandled Gunther, and he didn’t soften it. Speaking on The Phenomenally Retro Podcast with Tony Giles, the WWE veteran backed the criticism that the company built toward the Ring General and then steered him into the wrong story.
“I truly do believe WWE have dropped the ball when it comes to: you retire three legends and then your next big storyline is with a general manager. It’s fair to say that. The more I think about it, I’m like, ‘Oh, freak. Okay. Yeah, I guess.'”
Styles Wants The Title On Gunther
For Styles, the fix is simple. He argued the roster is missing a certain kind of champion, and that Gunther already fits the profile better than the man holding the belt.
“He can’t retire everybody who wrestles, but could he be the world champion? That makes a lot of sense. The one thing that we don’t have right now is a heel champion. Gunther is a hated heel. He’s a believable heel. I already think Gunther should be the world champion because Punk doesn’t need to be champion.”
Styles leaned on Gunther’s presence to make the case, describing the kind of aura that sells a top heel without a word.
“He’s one of those guys that I can imagine if you saw in a bar, you wouldn’t mess with that guy. I’m not saying people would mess with Punk or Cody or Roman, but Gunther has that look about him like, ‘No, I’m not gonna go there. Nope.'”
The Nick Aldis Problem
Styles also flagged the booking corner WWE painted itself into with a Gunther program against SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis, who recently admitted to costing Gunther a title shot.
“My fear is they have a match, and if they have a match, Aldis can’t win, because you can’t have the general manager beating the guy that retired three legends. That doesn’t make sense to me. So that to me seems like a wasted opportunity.”
That match is no longer hypothetical. Gunther vs. Aldis is now official for SummerSlam after an on-site attack at Fanatics Fest.
Styles closed the Gunther talk on a lighter note, recalling a chance run-in in Las Vegas where he found the Austrian doing exactly what a watch obsessive would be doing. “If you know anything about Gunther, you know exactly where I found him, looking at watches.”
