The Artist Formerly Known as WALTER
WALTER (Photo courtesy of WWE.com)
I was really worried when WALTER signed with WWE/NXT.
He had been a favorite of mine on the indies and I loved how unique of a wrestler he was. WALTER’s style, to me, has always been perfectly unpolished and brutal. I loved that he had multiple ways of finishing opponents and he made chest chops seem like a legitimately devastating move. In my mind, WWE SPORTS ENTERTAINER WALTER would end up getting dressed in lederhosen and would be given a gimmick of a tourist at Oktoberfest in Munich.
After this week’s NXT, I wish that was the route they went.
The main event this past Tuesday was Roderick Strong vs WALTER. After the match was over, WALTER grabbed the mic and declared, “The winner of this match is Gunther!” Which leads myself, as well as the rest of the IWC to believe that will be his name going forward. Recently, the WWE trademarked the name Gunther Stark, so by connecting the dots, we can assume the likely case here is that is the full name intended for WALTER. Yes, the company that is notorious for making wrestlers a single name i.e. (Antonio) Cesaro, (Alexander) Rusev and Big E (Langston) ADDED a name to a wrestler. As annoyed as I am at the name change, that alone is not what inspired this article. A quick google of the name Gunther Stark will pull up quite the history lesson.
I’ll save you the extra step - Gunther Stark is the name of a Nazi naval commander. Occam’s Razor dictates that the simplest explanation is usually the best one and in most cases, the simplest answer is that this was an honest mistake on the part of WWE, who simply failed to do their due diligence before pursuing this name change. Unfortunately, when it comes to Occam’s Razor and WWE, the simplest explanation isn’t necessarily that. We’ve seen countless times that WWE has chosen rather tasteless gimmicks, such as; Eugene, Muhammad Hassan, The Mexicools and many more.
WALTER holds some blame here too. I get it; standing up to your employer is a scary thing. You don’t want to be labeled hard to work with or punished by management but it’s difficult to give WALTER that benefit of the doubt when he has been adamant for years that he would not go to the US to be full time for WWE and up until his recent personal life circumstances changed, he held strong on that. Where is that conviction now? Since the name leaking and the backlash that ensued, the WWE seems to have taken a small step back and made his name simply Gunther.
The name change to Gunther annoys me. WALTER has been WALTER for 3 years, why change it now? Is the idea of a wrestler having a brand that WWE cannot control that big of a deal? If there was going to be a complete character make over, I’d get it. But to throw out the same exact wrestler with just a new name for no real reason is another sign of their awful micro management. They even make backstage reporters change their names!
The WWE seems terrified of making stars at this point. Guys like The Rock aren’t allowed to exist in WWE because they don’t need the company. Brock Lesnar has a stranglehold on Vince. I get that pro wrestling is a business, and the WWE is a very successful one at that, but it’s hard to see their side in this. Now more than ever, it’s clear that the WWE isn’t a lifetime gig & it’d be nice if the talent could at least rely on knowing that their name will have value regardless of their employment status with Vince McMahon and co.
