Gunther Says He ‘Outgrew’ NXT UK

Gunther is formerly known as WALTER, and he had a stellar run on NXT UK. After defeating Pete Dunne for the NXT United Kingdom Championship, the Austrian star held onto the championship for 870 days before losing the title to Ilja Dragunov at NXT TakeOver 36. In April this year, the Austrian star would eventually make his way to the main roster.

During his appearance on Out of Character with Ryan Satin, Gunther spoke about his matches with Dragunov and why he felt his time on NXT UK came to a satisfactory conclusion. According to him, wrestling Dragunov in a no-crowd environment did a lot to help their matches.

I think I’m one of those people who really kind of profited from the pandemic. I had my rivalry with Ilja going on in NXT UK, and I think that was one of those matches that really got good exposure. During the COVID time was my title match with Ilja, and I think we really benefitted from the empty arena, that there was no crowd noise or anything like that. We both had a very intense style and stuff like that, and that match really stood out, and yeah, it put us in a position where a lot of eyes were on us and stuff like that.

So I think I profited a lot from that time, and it also gave me a chance to take it little bit easy for a little bit, in terms of schedule and stuff like that. But when as it picked up a little bit again, we always had training camps at NXT UK up to the tapings and stuff. So we were a good amount of time busy and active actually in the ring over the year. But I feel like I did my bid in NXT UK during the pandemic and gave my best to keep it going, keep it interesting during the time. I outgrew it a little bit, and I felt like it was time to move on,

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Many who watched Dragunov and Gunther’s first match together on NXT UK believed it to be one of the best of that year. Dragunov would vacate the championship on July 7th due to injury. Meanwhile, Gunther would capture the Intercontinental Championship on SmackDown.

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