Gunther says his wrestling style was never ‘too heavily influenced by WWE’
Gunther is “very proud” to have forged his own path as an in-ring wrestler.
While appearing on The Morning Shift radio show in Atlanta ahead of tonight’s Raw, The Ring General was asked if there is anyone he’s modeled his wrestling style after. Gunther said he was mostly influenced by the people who he faced as he was coming up in wrestling rather than anything he saw on television.
“Almost like influence-wise, I would say I’m influenced mostly by the people that I’ve wrestled coming up,” Gunther responded. “Yeah, I don’t know, I’ve never been too heavily influenced by WWE at the time or something like that. It was mostly the guys I worked with. Like, Timothy Thatcher is one of those guys. Daisuke Sekimoto. Zack Sabre Jr. Obviously Ludwig Kaiser, who I spent a lot of time with. Those are the guys that mostly influenced me.
“I was kind of like in the lab developing myself in the dark a little bit. And all those skills I acquired I then brought to WWE to make it work on the biggest stage possible. And, yeah, it’s one of the things I’m very proud of that I’ve kind of like did it my own way. I didn’t follow the most popular routes that people usually go. I had my own way, and I did it my way. And I’m very proud of that.”
Gunther went through a presentation change a few months ago when he went back to using “Symphony No. 9” by Antonin Dvorak as his theme music. He had a simple explanation for the change when The Morning Shift asked about it.
“Yeah, because I like that song more,” he said. “I had this for a long time, so it was time to go back to it.”
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.