WrestleMania 42: How did WWE manage to fumble Gunther's WrestleMania season ... again?

Seth Rollins and Gunther are facing off at WrestleMania 42 because ... reasons?

(WWE via Getty Images)

In fairness, there's every chance that the match itself will emerge as the sleeper hit of WrestleMania. But it's still going to leave a lot of people wondering how WWE came so close to fumbling one of its most promising stars — and more importantly, someone whom WWE creative had invested so heavily in over the past year and change.

Understandably there's been a lot of blame placed on the whole "career killer" gimmick. We've now seen Gunther have three matches in quick succession with WWE legends, all of whom retired after being beaten by the Austrian bruiser. The angle gave us some stunning moments with Cena and AJ Styles in particular, but always felt like it’d have limited staying power going forward.

For a while, it looked like WWE might have a plan to keep it rolling. When we saw Gunther brutalizing Dragon Lee on "Raw" back in February, there was a lot of speculation that it might be the first step toward setting up a match between Gunther and Rey Mysterio. Though any excitement also gave way to panic: Wait, does that mean Mysterio is retiring?

Thankfully that option appears to be off the cards for a few years yet. But the entire episode did cast a bit of doubt on the wisdom of the whole "career killer" gimmick in general. Around that same time, Gunther was also left to bat off some slightly awkward questions in a radio interview when it was suggested he might consider retiring Brock Lesnar — probably not the speculation WWE was hoping for.

In some ways, though, that criticism of the angle misses the mark. The problem isn't having Gunther call himself the career killer per se, but the weird insistence that retiring old-timers should be all that he does. Why on earth would WWE want to create that kind of straightjacket when it comes to one of its most versatile performers and most fearsome former world champions?

The fact that WWE has pivoted to Gunther vs. Rollins suggests they've decided to opt for a more flexible approach (either that, or Rollins' shoulder injury was a hell of a lot worse than we were led to believe). But it still makes you wonder why it took them so long to come to that pretty obvious conclusion. Or what they would've done with Gunther if Rollins had been booked to face Bron Breakker as originally planned.

Ordinarily, I'd be willing to let it slide. But it's worth remembering that this is the third year running where we've seen a controversy around Gunther's booking during pro-wrestling’s biggest show of the year. Two years ago, he was beaten clean by Sami Zayn for the Intercontinental Title. Last year, he was forced to tap out to Jey Uso in a decision that could have been designed in a lab to infuriate hardcore fans. And this year, he almost missed the show altogether.

However much we rate Gunther — and believe me, I do — you have to admit that's a pretty rotten run of luck. At this point, you might even ask whether "The Ring General" is suffering from some kind of WrestleMania curse — and not the funny kind that gets milked for laughs by Danhausen over on "SmackDown".

With any luck, any notion of that sort of jinx will be firmly put to bed on Saturday night by Gunther and Rollins delivering an in-ring classic in front of the stadium crowd in Las Vegas. At this point, I genuinely hope that happens. In fact, I hope Gunther can deliver such a hard-hitting match that it’ll make the creatives realize just how foolish they were to take such a reckless approach to his 2026 booking in the first place.

Being the career killer worked fine in the post-Cena haze. But now it's time to revive the old Gunther who can dominate more than just retiring legends. And this Saturday is the perfect time to do it.

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