At Saturday Night’s Main Event, Gunther dethroned John Cena and ended his wrestling career. This was the second legend he had retired in the same year.
Fans weren’t pleased with this booking, so when Triple H (along with many wrestlers) appeared after Cena’s match, they were booed heavily by the crowd. A report said Triple H smiled when John Cena tapped out to Gunther, implying he expected the crowd to react that way.
Even Gunther was smiling on Raw recently when the fans booed him for beating Cena. It makes sense because he’s a heel, and that’s the kind of reaction one would expect if they had just retired a fan-favorite wrestler. However, Dave Meltzer says this wasn’t the case, and WWE was blindsided by how fans reacted to Gunther winning against Cena.
Triple H Reportedly Didn’t Expect Fans To React So Negatively To Gunther Winning Against John Cena
On Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer said that the company hadn’t expected fans to be so furious with the booking. It’s common knowledge that when wrestlers retire, they put over their opponent on their way out. But in Cena’s case, many fans wanted him to win his last fight. They didn’t think Gunther needed a rub from him.
On Saturday Night’s Main Event’s post-show, Triple H addressed fans’ reaction and said, “I’m actually mildly disappointed. I thought it would be so much louder.” But Meltzer says this was just a “defence mechanism” and that he hadn’t expected the audience to react so negatively to the booking.
“There are many people in WWE who did not agree with that decision, but the guy in charge did it. The one thing that I can say is that even though they may say something different publicly, they were blindsided by that reaction. The idea that we did it, we knew it was going to get heat, it’s just the price we pay. When they’re all chanting and he’s going, ‘Oh, I thought it would be louder’, that was a defence mechanism…. I was told there was no discussion of a reaction.”
Gunther has finished his storyline with John Cena, and it seems like he’s going to start a storyline with AJ Styles soon as hinted on Monday Night Raw.
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