Before he was forced out of the company, Vince McMahon had plans to make Gunther a comedy act. However, under Triple H's watch, the former NXT UK Champion became the longest-running Intercontinental Champion and is bound to get his hands on the world title sooner rather than later.
Triple H and Shawn Michaels oversaw NXT UK during his time there and The Ring General has now explained how their influence brought him to a company he never imagined being part of.
"I don’t know," Gunther said when asked by Gorilla Position whether his reign would have played out the same way on Vince's watch. "But it was one of the reasons why, for a long time I didn’t want to go to the US. The product before Triple H was not what I enjoyed."
"I just didn’t want to be part of that. I am who I am and that’s what I can do best. A big part of that is I need to have my time in the ring and have that time to put on the matches I can put on."
"That chance would not be there under the old regime. With Triple H, he always saw that in me, and he always had that vision for me," he added. "I got lucky that a lot of things in my career took place at the right time. It was a little bit of a leap of faith when I first made the move over. Everything worked out in the end."
In the same interview, Gunther talked candidly about being dethroned by Sami Zayn at WrestleMania.
"I don't think there was one right person. I think there would have been a few options. Chad is the other one that would have made a lot of sense. Sami is definitely one of those where it was 'He's the right guy to do it.' He's absolutely a fantastic professional wrestler. He has the natural connection with the audience. He's really the underdog that people can connect with and understand the struggle."
"It's naturally the personality he is. He doesn't look like the perfect athlete. That's not who he is or ever was. That also adds to the people having a connection because basically nobody in our audience is a perfect person. It's a very human thing to not be perfect. It's very easy to connect with it and to go through those struggles with that person."
"On top of that, he's fantastic in the ring and has been for years. To do the match with him at the biggest stage possible and go out in the biggest way possible, I was very happy with that. It was a very successful ending to that reign."
Gunther recently set his sights on winning the King of the Ring tournament and that appears to be next for him. Looking to the future, we have to repeat our earlier sentiment about him setting his sights on either the World Heavyweight Championship or the Undisputed WWE Championship.