Gunther doesn’t want wrestling character to be a ‘foreign menace’
Gunther doesn’t have any interest in playing a stereotypical pro wrestling “foreign menace.”
On a new episode of “What Do You Wanna Talk About?,” Gunther said he gets annoyed when anyone thinks of him as just being a foreign bad guy. There was a point early in his career where people wanted him to put a flag on his ring gear, but Gunther was sure to remove it as quickly as possible because he thinks pro wrestling has moved past the point where tropes like that are effective.
“No, I’m not a foreign menace. I always get a little bit annoyed because they go like, ‘Oh, he’s just a bad foreigner.’ I try to avoid everything that has to do with a flag or something,” Gunther said. “I mean, they put it on my trunks when I started out. They really wanted to have the flag on my — whatever, I got rid of it as soon as I could because it just doesn’t do anything. It’s not 1990 anymore. And I think today it’s about the person.”
Stereotypes like this might have had more of an impact in the 1980s, but Gunther feels like the United States is such a diverse place now and people from other countries are everywhere.
“I feel like now America is such a diverse country and stuff like that. I don’t know, depending where you’re at, but we had a place up, like, in the Northeast a little bit or something. I barely met an American person there,” he said. “There’s always somebody from somewhere else. It’s such a diverse place, I think.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re born in the world. Home will always be home. And nothing will ever be able to replace it. It does not matter. Even if you come up in a country that’s poor and you didn’t have a good upbringing or something, that feeling of home, nothing can replace that.”
Gunther is originally from Austria and spent much of his early wrestling days in Germany. Since joining WWE, he’s relocated to the United States. He’s accomplished a lot in his WWE career so far, including World Championship reigns and retiring legends like Goldberg, John Cena, and AJ Styles. His goal is to keep growing as a performer while taking on more and more responsibilities.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.