Gunther Marcel Barthel WWE SmackDown — Image Credit: WWE

Gunther On His Move To The United States: I Wanted To Wait Until The Time Was Right

July 25, 2022

Gunther is finally in the United States, and he has quickly become one of the most prominent stars on WWE SmackDown.

The former WALTER moved stateside earlier this year, and after a brief run on WWE NXT 2.0, he was called up to the blue brand. Previously, Gunther was hesitant to leave Europe, so making the change was a big step for him, personally and professionally.

During an appearance on WWE Out of Character with Ryan Satin, “The Ring General” was asked what changed regarding his willingness to move stateside. He responded by noting that he decided to wait until the time was right because he wanted to make sure it felt special when it happened.

“I mean obviously, I liked living in Europe,” said Gunther. “I still prefer it. It’s just a different way of living in America and I still don’t think it’s really for me, but I have a good life here, so I can’t complain. But it was never my first choice. And also it was a time in wrestling which was crazy because I think I started, I don’t know, 2005, I don’t know how many years. Looking back at the steps, wrestling [has been] changing and developing, and then out of nowhere, the gates were open for so many young wrestlers from Europe to actually go to WWE or wrestle other places and be seen and be successful and stuff like that.

“It felt a little bit like a gold rush, if that makes sense. So everybody obviously just jumped on every opportunity that they had, and I always felt like okay, sometimes it’s better to just wait things out and wait out the timing a little bit and wait for the time being right. So I always felt like, if everybody moves to America at the same time, it’s not gonna be as special then when I do it. It was always clear to me that it would happen at some point, but I tried to time it as good as possible for myself.”

In hindsight, the reigning WWE Intercontinental Champion noted that he’s happy with the way his move to the United States, and consequently WWE TV, went down because the timing was the best it could be.

“At the end of the day, was it the right way to go about it? For me personally, it definitely was, like how I feel right now and stuff like that,” said Gunther. “But at the end, it was my decision to do it that way, and I’m happy it went down like that because I feel like the timing was about perfect.”