Last night on WWE Raw it was announced that there will be a Gauntlet match next week to determine who will challenge Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER at WrestleMania. Six names were announced but it appears that there were two names that were originally planned for the match and were pulled.
WWE announced that the Gauntlet match will feature Ricochet, Chad Gable, Sami Zayn, Bronson Reed, Shinsuke Nakamura, and JD McDonagh. WWE has been teasing several of the names listed below as potential challengers for GUNTHER but two names…McDonagh and Reed seemingly came out of nowhere.
Last week, WWE seemed to be teasing R-Truth and The Miz as potential challengers. This was discussed today on Wrestling Observer Radio. Dave Meltzer said, “The interesting thing is if you remember last week when they were building this up, two of the key guys they were building up for this were The Miz and R-Truth and they were nowhere to be seen.”
Alvarez pointed out that Miz and Truth were on the show but in a segment playing video games and not part of the Gauntlet match. Meltzer said, “I think the deal must have been that they were gonna go with them and then they just decided, whatever they’re gonna do, they want better wrestlers. Because you can see they loaded it up with Ricochet who hasn’t been around, JD who came from nowhere.”
Whatever the plan is/was for the Gauntlet match, WWE seems to be heavily teasing that it will be Sami Zayn and/or Chad Gable to challenge for the IC Title at WrestleMania.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit F4WOnline.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Quotes were transcribed by Jim for WrestlingNews.co.
Next week, these six men will compete in a gauntlet match for a chance to challenge Gunther for the Intercontinental Title at WrestleMania XL. pic.twitter.com/fab8UUH11H
— Wrestling News (@WrestlingNewsCo) March 5, 2024
