1) Backstage News On WALTER’s Name Change
A big story this week in the wrestling world was WWE changing the name of WALTER to Gunther. This caused some controversy as it was believed that he was named after Gunther Stark, who is former Nazi officer.
According to Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, this name change was WWE’s idea and not WALTER’s. Those close to WALTER believe that he would not have been okay with the name change if he knew the origin.
Here is what Meltzer wrote:
Those close to him note he is politically very left leaning and comes from a working class family in Austria and they don’t believe had he personally known he’d have been okay with being named after a Nazi. In the past he never wanted to bring negative publicity to pro wrestling in Germany and this would have done so. Stark means “strong” in German. Gunther Stark, the Nazi U-boat commander is not that well known of a name in Germany or Austria. The belief is more that WWE came up with the name and failed to research it before trying to trademark it, or if they did find out, thinking the name was so little known that nobody would care.
My Take:
- Feels like WWE could have done some research and Googled the name before making the change. They are a massive company and they don’t have someone that can Google names? Seems like a botch by WWE.
What are some of the latest WWE rumors that you have heard? Let us know in the comments.
On a related note, check out my predictions for Wrestlemania 38.
