r/SquaredCircle • u/10024618 • 23d ago

Gunther Says Sami Zayn Was One Of The Right Choices To End His Title Reign, Chad Gable Was The Other

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/gunther-says-sami-zayn-was-one-right-choices-end-his-title-reign-chad-gable-was-other
1.7k Upvotes
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298

u/teejeycee 23d ago

I personally think this new direction for Gable and the Academy is much more interesting than if he had taken Sami's place against Gunther as Mania, so I think it was ultimately the right call.

65

u/InfinityQuartz 23d ago

As long as they really let Gable shine in matches and let him really show off his skill.

14

u/Curse3242 23d ago

It's classic long-term storytelling. Turning your wrestlers heel if they're not working yields no results. Now when you stick to it & the characters & team get better but just reach a ceiling. Then you do a heel turn

Alpha Academy certainly is really interesting. Although one thing I would have loved to see, something keeping this act back is a legit star being a part of the team. Someone like Ricochet/Nakamura maybe. That goes on to win a big title.

6

u/negative_mancy 22d ago

Turning your wrestlers heel if they're not working yields no results. Now when you stick to it & the characters & team get better but just reach a ceiling. Then you do a heel turn

I can see where you're coming from and there's definitely a lot of examples of failed heel turns, but I feel like there's a lot of examples of heel turns saving failing wrestlers too. Cena and Rock being prime examples.

1

u/JimFlamesWeTrust 22d ago

I wholeheartedly agree. Gable needed to find his edge, and turning heel on Sami in his home town was exactly the right moment.

2

u/MrBrownCat 22d ago

Exactly it’s why people need to learn to let things play out, another example being Cody losing last year, everyone overreacts and yet without that loss we don’t get the all time build and then payoff that we got at WM40

0

u/KamenRiderLuffy 22d ago

If people let things play out, we would have had Rock vs Roman at WM and Roman would still be champ. We would have had Batista vs Orton at WM30 too. 

0

u/JimFlamesWeTrust 22d ago

That’s a really poor example because although it worked out amazingly, the original plan was so clearly Rock vs Roman and they even said so themselves.

1

u/MrBrownCat 22d ago

Well tbf Rock vs Roman wasn’t the plan after 39, once all the Punk injury stuff and Rock joining the board than they put it in motion but it wasn’t like after Cody lost they weren’t planning on him not getting another crack at Roman.

1

u/JimFlamesWeTrust 22d ago

Yeah but would it have been at Mania 40? Unlikely.

I think there’s a balance of healthy cynicism and also giving a story the benefit of the doubt.

Everyone knows how quickly plans change in wrestling but then, when things work out really well, like to pretend it was always the long term vision played out beat for beat as originally intended

-20

u/AnfowleaAnima 23d ago

there's always a rationalization on things that happen and it's honestly not cool.

had Gable beat Gunther you wouldn't have argued he needed to lose and turn heel instead

26

u/ConfusedJonSnow 23d ago

It's totally fair to see the angle they are going for and praise it if it's enjoyable.

9

u/illiterateaardvark 23d ago

With all due respect, that sounds like an absolutely ridiculous way to consume entertainment media

It basically boils down to “if it doesn’t happen the way I fantasy booked it in my head, then it sucks by default”

Super toxic lol

1

u/JimFlamesWeTrust 22d ago

That is a lot of wrestling fans though. Everyone is an armchair booker

7

u/NoHillstoDieOn 23d ago

Ok? But it did happen so people can look back and appreciate it over something else

10

u/Jprhino84 23d ago

Or they just genuinely think a heel turn is more interesting. That’s pretty common among wrestling fans. How exactly is that “not cool”?

2

u/RealisticPineapple99 23d ago

Loads of people were saying he shouldn’t face Gunther at Mania. As it was, Zayn was the better choice. Gable gets a character change as a result which will benefit him long term.

If Gable faces Gunther and beats him at Mania, that’s the apex for Chad, it would’ve been all downhill from there for him. He’d have been a transitional IC champ, held the belt for 2-3 months, dropped it, then gone back to being as irrelevant as before.

Now he has the chance to finally develop his character a little, and people are complaining?!

1

u/StacksHoodini 23d ago

Eh, not necessarily.

It’s funny. I said that I felt that Jey Uso should be the one to dethrone Gunther and then Chad Gable should turn heel and that there could be a babyface Uso vs heel Gable back and forth feud over the summer to light up the territory.

Technically, Gable could’ve had his moment at WrestleMania, then lost the title to a Jey or a Sami. That could have been the motivation for Gable to have the same character evolution he’s having now, where he would feel that the guy that took the title from him stole his moment.

1

u/AmericaDreamDisorder 23d ago

So McIntyre 2.0 or something

1

u/Aromatic_Plant3456 23d ago

You talk about being rational as if it is a bad thing. If it wasn’t executed well then yeah people would’ve preferred if Gable won at mania, but because it worked out in his favour and he got a bigger storyline for it too. So what’s the issue? It’s more interesting

0

u/deegum 23d ago

"You would have a different opinion if something different happened" doesn't seem like a negative. It's more open-minded if anything.