CJ Perry revealed that her husband, Rusev, is a massive admirer of GUNTHER following Saturday Night’s Main Event. Speaking on TMZ Inside The Ring, Perry noted that Rusev was present for the event and had high praise for The Ring General’s performance against John Cena.
“This match, made me a Gunther fan. Like, I’m a huge fan of him,” Perry said. “It just shows you, he does his job so well. And….Rusev loves him, by the way. Like I talked to him afterwards. We’ve talked about it several times, and he’s like, ‘He’s so good. He’s so good. He’s my favorite.”
Perry drew parallels between GUNTHER and Rusev, describing both as effective heels who excel at making the audience genuinely dislike them. She admitted that she initially found GUNTHER irritating, only to realize that was the intended effect of his character work.
“I mean, Rusev is also one of the, in my opinion, Rusev is the greatest heel, but Gunther is right there with him,” Perry said. “And of course, I’m gonna be a little biased, but when you think about a heel and you’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t like that person. You know, I just don’t like him.’ That is a good heel, and that’s what Gunther was doing. I was like, ‘Oh, he just like, I don’t know. He just gets on my nerves.’ You know, I would always think he gets on my nerves. And now I’m realizing that’s because he’s doing his job so well.”
She praised GUNTHER for avoiding the trap of trying to be a “cool” bad guy. Perry highlighted his in-ring style and commitment to being unlikable as key reasons for his success as a top villain.
“He’s not trying to be the likable heel,” Perry explained. “He’s not trying to be the cool heel. He’s going out there and just being iconic at what he does. He is so good at professional wrestling. He is so so so good. He’s such a good technician as well. And he just goes out there very smooth, and he just goes and is vicious. He’s vicious, and he’s an a**hole out there. And that is what makes an incredible bad guy. Is like, sometimes, instead of doing some fancy move, he’s just gonna shove him and then, like, choke him out. And we all understand that, you know, we all understand getting choked out.”
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