Gunther turned down WWE twice until Triple H convinced him to sign with the company.
Gunther recently appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show to hype up his upcoming World Heavyweight Championship defense against Jey Uso at WrestleMania 41. The Ring General told Helwani he wasn’t initially interested in working for WWE until Triple H convinced him to make the move.
“I always had a really good relationship with Hunter (Triple H),” Gunther said. “When WWE got in touch with me first, I wanted to go to New Japan. It was my thing. Like, I always wanted to be a wrestler in Japan, but they didn’t really (make the) move or say anything. And then WWE got in touch with me, and I kind of, like, waited it out a little bit because it’s always me. I don’t know.
“When there’s an opportunity and everybody jumps at it at the same time… it gives me a weird feeling. I was like, man, maybe I sit this out first and see how it goes. It worked out in the end, but Hunter was always the guy that said… ‘Hey man, I see a big future here for you and if you want to do it, then I’m on board.'”
Gunther on his initial conversation with William Regal
Gunther further stated that he told William Regal during their initial conversation he didn’t want to portray a gimmick in WWE, and that he was willing to “improve on myself” without getting to portray “somebody else’s fantasy.”
“I said no two times to them…because I never saw myself there,” he said. “… I always thought, like, hey, what I got to offer is me. And that’s all I got. I’m happy to work on myself and I’m happy to improve on myself, but at the core, it’s always going to be me. And I was never interested in, I don’t know, portraying somebody else’s fantasy.
“And then just be a wrestler on the side, if that makes sense. I always wanted to do what I think is right for me to do. And, yeah, with NXT and everything, they gave me the opportunity to do that and stay based in Europe for a little bit and have a smooth transition because I was running the wrestling school in Germany before and stuff. And, yeah, it was a smooth transition to that.
