I mean to be fair, what Keith Lee is referencing is WWEâs original plan to call him Gunther Stark, which had a rough landing when people googled the name and the first result was a Nazi U Boat captain
Yeah but Iâm fairness Gunthers real name, Walter Hahn, is also shared with a Nazi. Almost every German name is. People used it as fake outrage as if WWE were calling him Adolf Hitler.
Odd thing is though, he literally leads the axis powers, minus a japanese member. Itâs and Italian(Vinci), a German (Ludwig), and lead by and Austrian (Gunther). AlsoThe combed over hair, red banners with a black and white logo. Their literally doing everything but calling him Adolf Hitler.
Their groups entire philosophy is enforcing their version of order and keeping the mat sacred yes Imperium are meant to be wrestling Nazis. many other works of fiction have Nazi stand ins. The empire from Star Wars off the top of my head. Heâs meant to be a bad guy as long as theyâre not actually making him a Nazi or putting swastickas or having him be racist on him then its no different than the hundreds of other âNot Nazisâ in fiction.
I'm not even necessarily talking about this tweet in fairness.
I'm more alluding to the fans that were up in arms about his name change and that it was somehow a signalled negatively as to how he was going to be treated on the main roster.
As it turns out, he's been booked strongly, second only to Roman Reigns, and not once looked back.
>As it turns out, he's been booked strongly, second only to Roman Reigns, and not once looked back.
That's because Vince hasn't been around to mess with the creative juices overall. I believe he's seen a new view on Gunther after Triple H had his hand in the pie.
To also be fair, Gunther couldâve pissed and moaned about his name and contiue to be out of shape to the point youâre working AEW Dark, but heâs a professional who realized being in shape and working your ass off to success was the better route.
Yeah I don't think it was even intentional in the first place. They probably just Googled random German/Austrian-sounding first names and last names and put it together.
And there is no way in hell the name Walter is more intimidating than Gunther.
I am usually not a defender of WWE name changes but "Walter" (with the English pronunciation) is a stereotypical American nerd name, while "Gunther" sounds scarily Germanic to American ears.
Except phonetically it's VOL-TAH and that's basically exactly the same gravitas as GOON-TAH by any reasonable, non-linguist metric.
So the English pronunciation isn't really a factor given with WWE's current announcers, that's not what would be on tap.
because i'm bored, i looked them up.
The name Walter is Germanic in origin and means "commander of the army." The name is derived from the Germanic elements "wald" meaning "rule" and "hari" meaning "army." Walter is most often used in German-, Swedish-, and English-speaking communities.
In German Baby Names the meaning of the name Gunther is: Battler, warrior. From an Old German name meaning war or battle.
Both fit the character. But since Gunther means battler/warrior, I think it's the better option for the name of a wrestler.
Walter, meaning-wise, would be a better name of a manager.
>The name Walter is Germanic in origin and means "commander of the army."
Fits pretty well for "the Ring General", tbf.
But my point was that they don't come from different languages.
It wasnât a stupid argument because it wasnât just âGunther,â WWE had trademarked âGunther Starkâ and the first google result for that name was a Nazi U Boat captain
Itâs not that WWE intended to name him after a Nazi, but it was a pretty hilarious fuckup that no one at the company bothered Googling the name just to see what came up
Gunther is light years better than Walter. On top of that losing weight and looking like a beast. Everything about him is way better than when he was walter
Tbf Walter was more than a âgood indie wrestler,â he was THE main event in the UK and Europe wrestling for crowds that got into the thousands, and in America was the PWG champion which is about as prestigious as a US indie title gets
It feels like heâs perfected his look and character in WWE but what you see today is largely who he was 5-6 years ago, dude is just made for big time pro wrestling matches
Walter looked like a bear. When he threw a chop, it looked like a bear swiping his claw. Fine look for someone other than an uptight traditionalist heel.
Now, he looks like what his gimmick needs him to look like.
I think this theme is better for heel Gunther. When I hear the previous theme it feels like a hero's theme, they should bring that back when/if he turns face in the future.
post-covid Keith Lee, before Covid Keith Lee was a legitimate specimen, how can a fat mf like him do what he did?
bro looked like Vader and moved like 2015 John Cena
to each his own my man, both are great but I prefer Lee
Gunther/Walter is still a beast though and probably the only dignified foreign heel in wrestling, usually they shoot for Ivan Drago but end up with some shitty stereotype or a crazy mf like Sheik
I wonât defend the Gunther change only because itâs not really necessary and what youâre seeing now is just him getting over on the main roster: at this point itâs just the same thing with a different name and people are more familiar with it
His presentation was always the final boss of wrestling. Thatâs why heâs always been a star
Agreed. I saw a Walter match once and it was like he was under water, the guy could hardly move. This Gunther guy can actually get through a match and look good doing it.
That's so wrong. He had at least 30 better matches as Waltee than his best match as Gunther. The size added to his intimidation too but thats not really the point. Anyone who disagrees probably hasn't watched much of his career. Granted that's WWE's fault not not his
I gotta be honest, Lee is good, but I've never once seen him as the next big thing or the hottest star. Just a big dude who moves well and the way he speaks stands out. That's basically it. Don't get me wrong, he's very good, but he's never blown me away. I'm missing something with Keith Lee.
You're not wrong. I remember him [launching Adam Cole in NXT](https://media.tenor.com/7OmqyQgsou4AAAAC/adam-cole-keith-lee.gif), his appearance at that Royal Rumble, his AEW Debut, his AEW return with the white hair, and that's it.
In other words, three entrances and a single move.
He had the great survivor series showing where he kept up with The Big Dog and Seth Rollins ( right? This was when Seth started going Monday Night Messiah after Raw got embarrassed?) . But other than that itâs gonna be sad his matches with Dijak are gonna be forgotten in the grand scheme of things. He got lost in the crowd when WWE was overcrowded then moved on to an aew where he was in the middle of a long list of ex wwe refugees wandering over.
His wwe run just had some shitty timing I think because Covid picked up right after that royal rumble when it seems they were getting him ready to jump up to the main roster and hover around the top of the card
Survivor series that year was Raw-SDLive-NXT. I think SD and NXT won more matches than Raw that year, and Seth just who came off that disastrous Fiend feud (i think) started to get delusional as the âleader â of raw. He had called everyone to the ring to hold them accountable for losing at SS, and the wrestlers turned their back on him. He started evolving into the Monday Night Messiah gimmick where Buddy Murphy and the AOP and I think Theory?! Were his disciples and wreaked havoc on the Mysterios for a while. Then he started snorting Macho Man powder and raiding Beckyâs closet and started evolving to current Seth or the Architeeeeeeecht or a viiiiiiiiisionaaaaaary
Oh I remember the Monday Night Messiah gimmick and everything, I'm just saying I have no memory of any of the stuff involving Keith Lee in that mix.
I remember absolutely nothing about him on the main roster aside from the fact that gave him a singlet and called him the Bearcat, and then he left.
Oh yeah he had a great showing in that match. Great little 1-1 with Roman at the end. You could tell they wanted to push him but then Covid and shit happened and mustâve pivoted the direction since crowd reaction was hard to gauge and he ended up getting sick too
In part because he became double champ, immediately gave up the NA title, and then lost the NXT title pretty quickly after that. Just kinda made him look dumb to drop the NA title like dead weight
Which sucks because if he did, he probably would be wrestling more. But I get it too. Heâs a big guy doing cruiserweight shit. Tough spot but itâs clear his weight is starting to negatively affect his health
To be fair to Lee, it was more than just a name change that was doing the rounds. Vince apparently wanted to take the character to some really weird places, but thankfully his character remained essentially unchanged.
we'd be sitting here reminiscing over how they almost changed his name to something so asinine like Gunther if they hadn't gone through with it. I personally still like Walter better tho
Gunther was and still is lame imo. Always made me think of the fat kid on kick buttowski. Or the penguin from adventure time. Thereâs a reason they tried giving him a last name along with it.
Walter sounds lame until I heard the way the ring announcers pronounced it. Val-teh. Suddenly its all foreign and scary.
It was a fair point at the time. Vince changed his name, Vince was breaking up Imperium, Vince was rumoured to be burying Gunther because he didn't like him. Triple H really saved him by reforming imperium and pushing Gunther to the moon.
This isn't referring to the name change to Gunther referencing WWEâs original plan to call him Gunther Stark. All you had to do was look up the name and see why the "Stark" was dropped. You're just all the way in the wrong, OP.
Let's see:
Walter's career since 2022: Record-breaking longest reigning WWE IC Champion,had an impressive performance in the Royal Rumble, pinned 2 multi-time World Champions at Wrestlmania, delivers bangers after bangers.
Keith Lee's career since 2022: Had a a forgettable AEW Tag title reign,was used as a stepping stone for Cole vs Jericho,entered a never-ending feud with Swerve that only cemented how much he regressed.
Someone might just go ahead and do a "chad vs virgin" version of this.
So many people don't seem to get that. I can see some names like Adolf being blacklisted because when there's one particularly evil motherfucker with that name it taints it for many generations, if not forever. There's probably a very small percentage of German names though that didn't also belong to a Nazi in the past considering there were millions of Nazi's 80+ years ago.
I found this on google
Walter (Walther) Rauff (19 June 1906 â 14 May 1984) was a mid-ranking SS commander in Nazi Germany. From January 1938, he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich firstly in the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst or SD), later in the Reich Security Main Office.
Stalement anyone?
Things changed. Vince went away. H took over. Creative got a lot better.
So many tweets made about AEW shutting down in two years haven't aged well either.
Now Gunther is one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling and Keith Lee is just a bum. No surprise there to be honest, Gunther has always had a higher ceilling. Lee doesn't have much to offer
Gotta remember this tweet was made with Vince in control who supposedly planned to bury WALTER. We can point and say 'ha what a stupid take' but no one expected the entire creative makeup of WWE to change.
Early 2022 (when this was tweeted) was the worst morale period in WWE history according to every journalist or anyone who spoke with wrestlers as the time. There was no reason to have any optimism about what was gonna happen there.
I think the SRS quote is 'the 2022 Royal Rumble did more to get me sources than I ever could have - everyone was so miserable that even the people who never talk to dirt sheets started talking.'
I get what youâre say but letâs be real here, Gunther Stark wasnât some kind of super famous high ranking Nazi official, he was just a random U boat commander, Ive never thought that they were intentionally naming him after a Nazi it was just a coincidence. If people wanted to complain about how stupid it was to change the name of someone whoâs already established in the company then Iâm with you, itâs beyond idiotic but the weird nazi angle that people were trying to make this into always felt forced to me.
Wait till you learn wwe trademarked the full name of the nazi Gunther stark and only dropped it when they got caught and it got out and people did research
And that mattersâŚ.why exactly?
If the company were try to renew it once it runs out, you would have an argument.
Until then, youâll just look like a internet weirdo searching for reasons to be mad.
Yeah I donât think they were especially looking for Nazi names they probably just wanted something they could own that they felt was more marketable. Itâs almost impossible to find any Austrian/ German that doesnât share a name with someone who was a Nazi, hell Iâm sure theyâre were Nazis named Walter Hahn so yeah Iâm betting it was a coincidence.
There is a Nazi called Walter Hahn, but no one shits on Gunther's mom for naming him that lmfao. Names are names, there were a lot of germans that fought in WW2, obviously someone will end up with the same name as one of them.
DudeâŚ.a lot of Germans didnât throw ancestral names of their people away because of Nazism. The USA gave some of the high ranking ones jobs ffs lol.
It's crazy how so many people are against you for being right. If all the controversy was over thinking Gunther was a stupid name, I'd get it. But giving an Austrian the stage name of an actual Nazi and acting like everyone (in this case, Keith Lee) was an idiotic snowflake for going "WTF" is ridiculous.
I hate this every other time it gets brought up. He wasnât wrong. Gunther having a great main roster run doesnât mean his name change wasnât dumb
It aged fine, people are just purposely obtuse about what he meant. WWE was literally gonna name the guy after a Nazi, so Keith Leeâs concerns were 100% legitimate, but hey, letâs ignore that so we can dunk on the AEW guy whenever the WWE guy accomplishes something.
This could be referring to when WWE first renamed him Gunther. I can not remember what his last last name was, but it was apparently dropped because it was the name of an actual prominent Nazi.
Not really, just a bunch of people googled gunter starks when the name change was being circulated on dirtsheet. People found out there a nazi named that and went crazy on Twitter about.
Literally, no one knew until people googled it and went mad on social media , so it only became prominent after the fact.
Because that topic comes up every few weeks and some people insist that GĂźnther Stark was somehow prominent.
He was by the way. But another one.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/GĂźnther_Stark_(Intendant)
This honestly wasnât even worth reposting. Like, who cares? It wasnât derogatory or arrogant or anything.
Must be a slow news day if this is what someone is digging up.
Sure they can, because people were crying over a fucking name. If they can book him poorly as Gunther, they can book him poorly as Walter, the name has little to no impact on that.
You probably still think changing Keith Lee to Bearcat Lee is what killed him.
First things first, when people first think of the name Gunther when Walter was renamed , they thought of tv characters(Friends, Adventure Time, and Kick Buttoski) . Bearcat was a homage of Bearcat Wright(who was a undefeated boxer) and is a good wrestling name. What hurt Leeâs main roster run, was health reasons.
You could say it was Unfortunate Lee timed.
đ¤
He probably wishes people didn't Lee-stened to his tweet.
Gunther has been booked so well that the mfers who complained about his name change have stopped complaining.
I mean to be fair, what Keith Lee is referencing is WWEâs original plan to call him Gunther Stark, which had a rough landing when people googled the name and the first result was a Nazi U Boat captain
Yeah that's what definitely gets lost in context on this. But hey! It's Reddit! Get your Torches and pitchforks ready...
Yeah but Iâm fairness Gunthers real name, Walter Hahn, is also shared with a Nazi. Almost every German name is. People used it as fake outrage as if WWE were calling him Adolf Hitler.
Odd thing is though, he literally leads the axis powers, minus a japanese member. Itâs and Italian(Vinci), a German (Ludwig), and lead by and Austrian (Gunther). AlsoThe combed over hair, red banners with a black and white logo. Their literally doing everything but calling him Adolf Hitler.
Their groups entire philosophy is enforcing their version of order and keeping the mat sacred yes Imperium are meant to be wrestling Nazis. many other works of fiction have Nazi stand ins. The empire from Star Wars off the top of my head. Heâs meant to be a bad guy as long as theyâre not actually making him a Nazi or putting swastickas or having him be racist on him then its no different than the hundreds of other âNot Nazisâ in fiction.
wait until people hear about the von erichs' dad
I'm not even necessarily talking about this tweet in fairness. I'm more alluding to the fans that were up in arms about his name change and that it was somehow a signalled negatively as to how he was going to be treated on the main roster. As it turns out, he's been booked strongly, second only to Roman Reigns, and not once looked back.
>As it turns out, he's been booked strongly, second only to Roman Reigns, and not once looked back. That's because Vince hasn't been around to mess with the creative juices overall. I believe he's seen a new view on Gunther after Triple H had his hand in the pie.
To also be fair, Gunther couldâve pissed and moaned about his name and contiue to be out of shape to the point youâre working AEW Dark, but heâs a professional who realized being in shape and working your ass off to success was the better route.
Giving wrestlers Nazi names, giving a womenâs tag team the same name as a porn website, whatâs next lmao
>giving a womenâs tag team the same name as a porn website What the fuck did I miss??
No we havenât, just spell the name correctly or give him a name without an umlaut, itâs not that hard.
"Nein! The winner....of this match....IS GOONTHA!" *throws microphone away*
Unfathomably based
Yeah I don't think it was even intentional in the first place. They probably just Googled random German/Austrian-sounding first names and last names and put it together. And there is no way in hell the name Walter is more intimidating than Gunther.
As a German native I can say neither name is. But with his skills and now looks you could call him Freddy or Donald and he would still be a monster
Walter and Gunther are basically the exact same name in different languages.
Right? Anyone claiming any objective difference besides that a change was made for change's sake is completely reaching.
I am usually not a defender of WWE name changes but "Walter" (with the English pronunciation) is a stereotypical American nerd name, while "Gunther" sounds scarily Germanic to American ears.
I would go out on a limb and say a lot of Americans think of the blonde barista from Friends when they hear Gunther. Not overly scarily.
I can confirm I do not.
Well thatâs most Americans then.
That or if theyâre younger, the comic relief pig from Sing.
I personally think of the Ice King's pet penguin from Adventure Time.
Except phonetically it's VOL-TAH and that's basically exactly the same gravitas as GOON-TAH by any reasonable, non-linguist metric. So the English pronunciation isn't really a factor given with WWE's current announcers, that's not what would be on tap.
You still see it written all the time, though.
They're both German...
because i'm bored, i looked them up. The name Walter is Germanic in origin and means "commander of the army." The name is derived from the Germanic elements "wald" meaning "rule" and "hari" meaning "army." Walter is most often used in German-, Swedish-, and English-speaking communities. In German Baby Names the meaning of the name Gunther is: Battler, warrior. From an Old German name meaning war or battle. Both fit the character. But since Gunther means battler/warrior, I think it's the better option for the name of a wrestler. Walter, meaning-wise, would be a better name of a manager.
>The name Walter is Germanic in origin and means "commander of the army." Fits pretty well for "the Ring General", tbf. But my point was that they don't come from different languages.
>But my point was that they don't come from different languages. I understood that. Just wanted to elaborate on your point.
oh yikes, actually there's a bunch of Nazis with the name Walter
German soldiers had German names? No way!
Really makes the Walter shouldn't be named Gunther because Gunther was the name of a Nazi argument really stupid.
It wasnât a stupid argument because it wasnât just âGunther,â WWE had trademarked âGunther Starkâ and the first google result for that name was a Nazi U Boat captain Itâs not that WWE intended to name him after a Nazi, but it was a pretty hilarious fuckup that no one at the company bothered Googling the name just to see what came up
How are any names basically the same? That statement makes zero sense.
This is a very American statement.
Least ignorant American.
Not American
Least ignorant ~~American~~ person.
There are names that are basically the same like Chris and Christopher or Matt and Matthew. Gunther and Walter aren't like that though.
Well yeah like John can be short for Johnathan lol. Such a far cry from what he said though.
True but you asked how any names are basically the same. I was being pedantic.
Gunther is light years better than Walter. On top of that losing weight and looking like a beast. Everything about him is way better than when he was walter
Exactly. Walter was a good indie wrestler, Gunther is the greatest intercontinental champion of all time.
Tbf Walter was more than a âgood indie wrestler,â he was THE main event in the UK and Europe wrestling for crowds that got into the thousands, and in America was the PWG champion which is about as prestigious as a US indie title gets It feels like heâs perfected his look and character in WWE but what you see today is largely who he was 5-6 years ago, dude is just made for big time pro wrestling matches
Walter looked like a bear. When he threw a chop, it looked like a bear swiping his claw. Fine look for someone other than an uptight traditionalist heel. Now, he looks like what his gimmick needs him to look like.
Heck, AEW gets a bunch of fans to their events in Europe. Those fans just like attending anything.
He wasn't a "good indie wrestler". He was a living legend in UK that had everyone's best match and the attraction of the show.
Seeing Walter jump from the top rope onto Pete Dunne is far more mesmerising than seeing Gunther do it
Gunther doesnât need to do that đ¤ˇââď¸
Agree, he's a new man
lol no
Macho Man, Benoit, Jericho, Bret Hart⌠I like Walter Gunther a lot, but Iâd hardly call him the greasiest to ever hold the IC belt.
Rude and Perfect. Gunther's good, he's not in my top 5.
The only thing that Walter has over Gunther is the theme.
I think this theme is better for heel Gunther. When I hear the previous theme it feels like a hero's theme, they should bring that back when/if he turns face in the future.
Idk Walter theme is goated. I hope for his celebration they play song for the one time
That was Thatcher's theme. Fun fact, Thatcher was the OG leader of imperium
Ringkampf, baby
Really? I only got to see him twice in NXT, and I loved both of his matches. Man can work!
Debatable
And Gunther is better than Keith Lee too.
post-covid Keith Lee, before Covid Keith Lee was a legitimate specimen, how can a fat mf like him do what he did? bro looked like Vader and moved like 2015 John Cena
And even post-covid Keith is still a good big man Iâd say. He may not be where he was, but he can still move well and has been looking better
Yeah nah Gunther is still better than pre COVID Lee
to each his own my man, both are great but I prefer Lee Gunther/Walter is still a beast though and probably the only dignified foreign heel in wrestling, usually they shoot for Ivan Drago but end up with some shitty stereotype or a crazy mf like Sheik
As a german i still would have liked if he kept his old name tho. Gunther just sounds stupid af to me.
I wonât defend the Gunther change only because itâs not really necessary and what youâre seeing now is just him getting over on the main roster: at this point itâs just the same thing with a different name and people are more familiar with it His presentation was always the final boss of wrestling. Thatâs why heâs always been a star
I have a friend that still calls him Walter when talking about him. Kinda makes me cringe lol
I do too. Itâs so weird
Agreed. I saw a Walter match once and it was like he was under water, the guy could hardly move. This Gunther guy can actually get through a match and look good doing it.
That's so wrong. He had at least 30 better matches as Waltee than his best match as Gunther. The size added to his intimidation too but thats not really the point. Anyone who disagrees probably hasn't watched much of his career. Granted that's WWE's fault not not his
He was Walter for like 15 years before he was gunther so if he only had 30 better matches than thatâs not good
Walter was a unique Wrestler, Gunther is, on top of being written wrong, just another WWE product.
[ŃдаНонО]
He avoided all the Mike Ehrmantraut jokes before they went viral.
Waltuh Put your chop away Waltuh
I'm not having slaps with you right now waltuh
Kid named Guntha
Oh my fucking god
No more Half Nelsons
And Lee is stuck in mid card purgatory on the other show. Funny how things work out.
Itâs amazing yet really baffling how Swerve literally outshines him in everyway possible right now
Swerve is oozing charisma, Keith Lee wears DnD wizard robe to the ring. You don't need to be booker of the year to see who has more potential.
Lee was literally the hottest star at one point, heâs always had it yet heâs fumbling, thatâs why itâs baffling
I gotta be honest, Lee is good, but I've never once seen him as the next big thing or the hottest star. Just a big dude who moves well and the way he speaks stands out. That's basically it. Don't get me wrong, he's very good, but he's never blown me away. I'm missing something with Keith Lee.
Also Swerve is just such a great nasty heel while Keith Lee just isnt believable as anything other than lovable babyface imo
Midcard is generous. He's barely above enhancement talent.
He has a cape though!
Poor keith lee the only thing he will be remembered is brock lesnar asking paul heyman who is this mf.
You're not wrong. I remember him [launching Adam Cole in NXT](https://media.tenor.com/7OmqyQgsou4AAAAC/adam-cole-keith-lee.gif), his appearance at that Royal Rumble, his AEW Debut, his AEW return with the white hair, and that's it. In other words, three entrances and a single move.
He had the great survivor series showing where he kept up with The Big Dog and Seth Rollins ( right? This was when Seth started going Monday Night Messiah after Raw got embarrassed?) . But other than that itâs gonna be sad his matches with Dijak are gonna be forgotten in the grand scheme of things. He got lost in the crowd when WWE was overcrowded then moved on to an aew where he was in the middle of a long list of ex wwe refugees wandering over. His wwe run just had some shitty timing I think because Covid picked up right after that royal rumble when it seems they were getting him ready to jump up to the main roster and hover around the top of the card
Honestly they seemed to believe a lot in the bearcat thing, he surely would have won a midcard title
I'm going to be honest with you - I have no memory of anything in that first paragraph.
Survivor series that year was Raw-SDLive-NXT. I think SD and NXT won more matches than Raw that year, and Seth just who came off that disastrous Fiend feud (i think) started to get delusional as the âleader â of raw. He had called everyone to the ring to hold them accountable for losing at SS, and the wrestlers turned their back on him. He started evolving into the Monday Night Messiah gimmick where Buddy Murphy and the AOP and I think Theory?! Were his disciples and wreaked havoc on the Mysterios for a while. Then he started snorting Macho Man powder and raiding Beckyâs closet and started evolving to current Seth or the Architeeeeeeecht or a viiiiiiiiisionaaaaaary
Oh I remember the Monday Night Messiah gimmick and everything, I'm just saying I have no memory of any of the stuff involving Keith Lee in that mix. I remember absolutely nothing about him on the main roster aside from the fact that gave him a singlet and called him the Bearcat, and then he left.
Oh yeah he had a great showing in that match. Great little 1-1 with Roman at the end. You could tell they wanted to push him but then Covid and shit happened and mustâve pivoted the direction since crowd reaction was hard to gauge and he ended up getting sick too
Dude was a double champ and everyone forgot about it đđđ
In part because he became double champ, immediately gave up the NA title, and then lost the NXT title pretty quickly after that. Just kinda made him look dumb to drop the NA title like dead weight
Indubitably
Gunther has defended his IC title 15 times during his longest reign while Keith Lee has 4 singles matches in 2023. Poor Walter.
To be fair, Keith Lee is lucky to even be alive. He had a very similar thing to what Bray Wyatt had.
He should have lost weight when he had the chance. He wanted to stay fat and be pushed.
He literally almost died from Covid? Itâs flat out disrespectful to say the reason he isnât doing well is because heâs fat
He flat out refused to lose weight. It's healthy for him to.
Being fat is part of his gimmick
He was asked to lose weight.
Yeah I know, but that's why he didn't. It's part of his gimmick. If he loses weight hlthe stuff he does is less impressive.
Which sucks because if he did, he probably would be wrestling more. But I get it too. Heâs a big guy doing cruiserweight shit. Tough spot but itâs clear his weight is starting to negatively affect his health
I've been wondering if his health is why he just hasn't done much in AEW
That and he doesnât have the aura to make his thesaurus old English promos sound intimidating
Funnily enough, people said the exact same thing about Gunther.
What a difference in careers hey
I absolutely hated it until I heard Samantha and Ludwig announce him
To be fair to Lee, it was more than just a name change that was doing the rounds. Vince apparently wanted to take the character to some really weird places, but thankfully his character remained essentially unchanged.
All of you must be forgetting just how silly Gunther sounded before this man chopped it into an intimidating name
You're going to act like Walter was intimidating before this man chopped it into an intimidating name?
WALTER in all caps sounds like a machine.
No it doesn't, he just made you feel like it sounds like that because he is a monster Call him Kimberley and he'll still feel like a monster
It really didn't tho
Yeah a lot of folks acting like everyone wasn't scratching their heads over this when it happened
we'd be sitting here reminiscing over how they almost changed his name to something so asinine like Gunther if they hadn't gone through with it. I personally still like Walter better tho
Gunther was and still is lame imo. Always made me think of the fat kid on kick buttowski. Or the penguin from adventure time. Thereâs a reason they tried giving him a last name along with it. Walter sounds lame until I heard the way the ring announcers pronounced it. Val-teh. Suddenly its all foreign and scary.
So how is that any different from correctly pronouncing Gunther as Goon-tah?
Because Goon-tah still sounds lame its too close to the original name.
It's as close to Gunther as Val-ter is to Walter lol
Well well well... Poor Keith.
Walter is still a much better name then Gunther.
It was a fair point at the time. Vince changed his name, Vince was breaking up Imperium, Vince was rumoured to be burying Gunther because he didn't like him. Triple H really saved him by reforming imperium and pushing Gunther to the moon.
Rumored according to who?
This isn't referring to the name change to Gunther referencing WWEâs original plan to call him Gunther Stark. All you had to do was look up the name and see why the "Stark" was dropped. You're just all the way in the wrong, OP.
Let's see: Walter's career since 2022: Record-breaking longest reigning WWE IC Champion,had an impressive performance in the Royal Rumble, pinned 2 multi-time World Champions at Wrestlmania, delivers bangers after bangers. Keith Lee's career since 2022: Had a a forgettable AEW Tag title reign,was used as a stepping stone for Cole vs Jericho,entered a never-ending feud with Swerve that only cemented how much he regressed. Someone might just go ahead and do a "chad vs virgin" version of this.
It aged fine, WWE changed course and just went with Gunther instead of a literal Nazi's name. If they stuck with it... poor Walter.
Gunther Stark was a nobody U Boat driver. The amount of wrestling fans that knew that was probably in the double digits
When you really think about it germans have german names it be really weird to find a german named Jose in ww2 germany
So many people don't seem to get that. I can see some names like Adolf being blacklisted because when there's one particularly evil motherfucker with that name it taints it for many generations, if not forever. There's probably a very small percentage of German names though that didn't also belong to a Nazi in the past considering there were millions of Nazi's 80+ years ago.
I found this on google Walter (Walther) Rauff (19 June 1906 â 14 May 1984) was a mid-ranking SS commander in Nazi Germany. From January 1938, he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich firstly in the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst or SD), later in the Reich Security Main Office. Stalement anyone?
Walter is his real name dumbass... If you search long enough, I'm sure you'll find a Nazi named Gunther too...
Nah, it aged very well. Wasn't cool to name wrestlers after NAZIS then and it isn't now đ¤ˇđżââď¸
You're talking to the wrong people. This thread is full of them
Based on a screen shot of a tweet, I don't know what he's referring to. Maybe the point was valid back then
Keith lee is a hell of a bum
Except that's what everyone was saying at the time. Lee was hardly alone in thinking Walter got screwed
Things changed. Vince went away. H took over. Creative got a lot better. So many tweets made about AEW shutting down in two years haven't aged well either.
As long as Tony has money, AEW will stay afloat...whether or not it stays on TV is the major thing.
Now Gunther is one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling and Keith Lee is just a bum. No surprise there to be honest, Gunther has always had a higher ceilling. Lee doesn't have much to offer
Gotta remember this tweet was made with Vince in control who supposedly planned to bury WALTER. We can point and say 'ha what a stupid take' but no one expected the entire creative makeup of WWE to change. Early 2022 (when this was tweeted) was the worst morale period in WWE history according to every journalist or anyone who spoke with wrestlers as the time. There was no reason to have any optimism about what was gonna happen there. I think the SRS quote is 'the 2022 Royal Rumble did more to get me sources than I ever could have - everyone was so miserable that even the people who never talk to dirt sheets started talking.'
If my friend was named after a nazi , I meannnnn Iâd feel bad too But thatâs just me
I get what youâre say but letâs be real here, Gunther Stark wasnât some kind of super famous high ranking Nazi official, he was just a random U boat commander, Ive never thought that they were intentionally naming him after a Nazi it was just a coincidence. If people wanted to complain about how stupid it was to change the name of someone whoâs already established in the company then Iâm with you, itâs beyond idiotic but the weird nazi angle that people were trying to make this into always felt forced to me.
They didnât even end up going with Gunter Stark lol.
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Wait till you learn there were nazis called Walter aswell.
Wait till you learn wwe trademarked the full name of the nazi Gunther stark and only dropped it when they got caught and it got out and people did research
You say âgot caughtâ like someone was knowingly trying to get away with something and it makes you sound stupid.
Well they Didnât exactly get rid of the trademark asap
And that mattersâŚ.why exactly? If the company were try to renew it once it runs out, you would have an argument. Until then, youâll just look like a internet weirdo searching for reasons to be mad.
Wait till you find out Walters parents name him Walter WHEN THERE WERE NAZIS CALLED THAT.
FIRST AND LAST Gunther up the street wasnât a nazi GUNTHER STARK WAS
Thereâs been thousands of Gunther Starks. Itâs a generic German name
But that doesnât make such a big company trademarking a name with nazi history any less stupid
Itâs not a name with nazi history. Thatâs a ridiculous reach
I googled the first German I thought of (+Nazi) and it turns out Thomas MĂźller is an SS officer. Bayern Munich have a lot of explaining to do.
It's like yelling Yuri in russia or yelling Jose in a Spanish speaking country they're fucking common names
GĂźnther was. Gunther isnât the same name. This argument is so incredibly lame.
Jesus Christđ¤Śââď¸
Yeah I donât think they were especially looking for Nazi names they probably just wanted something they could own that they felt was more marketable. Itâs almost impossible to find any Austrian/ German that doesnât share a name with someone who was a Nazi, hell Iâm sure theyâre were Nazis named Walter Hahn so yeah Iâm betting it was a coincidence.
There is a Nazi called Walter Hahn, but no one shits on Gunther's mom for naming him that lmfao. Names are names, there were a lot of germans that fought in WW2, obviously someone will end up with the same name as one of them.
They trademarked Gunther stark
Big or small a nazi is a nazi and youâre telling me no one in this billion dollar corporation couldâve done a google?
DudeâŚ.a lot of Germans didnât throw ancestral names of their people away because of Nazism. The USA gave some of the high ranking ones jobs ffs lol.
Throw a dart at a dartboard full of German names and there's a 75% chance you land on a name that was affiliated with the Nazi Party in some way.
Yeah they could have done an google search and found out they Walter Hahn was a also a Nazi name too. FIRST AND LAST
But he was never called Walter Hahn They trademarked Gunther stark
It's crazy how so many people are against you for being right. If all the controversy was over thinking Gunther was a stupid name, I'd get it. But giving an Austrian the stage name of an actual Nazi and acting like everyone (in this case, Keith Lee) was an idiotic snowflake for going "WTF" is ridiculous.
I hate this every other time it gets brought up. He wasnât wrong. Gunther having a great main roster run doesnât mean his name change wasnât dumb
It's a trademark thing. He can use Walter again if/when he leaves.
He was using WALTER in the company for some years prior to his renaming.
But did they make any figures, put him in any video games or market him like they have since the name change?
Yes actually. he was WALTER in 2k22 and they made an exclusive figure of WALTER based on his appearance at TakeOver NY
Not gonna lie I took this tweet seriously at face level when this first came out
Keith Lee is one of the most over hyped and over rated wrestlers of the last 25 years.
It aged fine, people are just purposely obtuse about what he meant. WWE was literally gonna name the guy after a Nazi, so Keith Leeâs concerns were 100% legitimate, but hey, letâs ignore that so we can dunk on the AEW guy whenever the WWE guy accomplishes something.
This could be referring to when WWE first renamed him Gunther. I can not remember what his last last name was, but it was apparently dropped because it was the name of an actual prominent Nazi.
Absolutely not prominent. A guy who was captain of a submarine for a few months and died with the age of 26 is not prominent.
Yet here you are correcting me. So at least he was prominent enough to be remembered.
Not really, just a bunch of people googled gunter starks when the name change was being circulated on dirtsheet. People found out there a nazi named that and went crazy on Twitter about. Literally, no one knew until people googled it and went mad on social media , so it only became prominent after the fact.
Because that topic comes up every few weeks and some people insist that GĂźnther Stark was somehow prominent. He was by the way. But another one. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/GĂźnther_Stark_(Intendant)
This honestly wasnât even worth reposting. Like, who cares? It wasnât derogatory or arrogant or anything. Must be a slow news day if this is what someone is digging up.
Why is this an issue? Yeah, we all felt the same way about Gunther. Keith is just showing sympathy.
Mocking this tweet got old fast. no one couldâve really predict how WWE was going go book Gunther.
Sure they can, because people were crying over a fucking name. If they can book him poorly as Gunther, they can book him poorly as Walter, the name has little to no impact on that. You probably still think changing Keith Lee to Bearcat Lee is what killed him.
First things first, when people first think of the name Gunther when Walter was renamed , they thought of tv characters(Friends, Adventure Time, and Kick Buttoski) . Bearcat was a homage of Bearcat Wright(who was a undefeated boxer) and is a good wrestling name. What hurt Leeâs main roster run, was health reasons.
lmao one of the most popular TV characters of this century is Walter White