WWE Champion Gunther Opens Up About Winning 2024 King Of The Ring Tournament

Gunther stands atop "WWE Raw" as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion after dethroning Damian Priest at the 2024 SummerSlam Premium Live Event. But he wouldn't have gotten a shot at gold had it not been for the King of the Ring tournament earlier in the year. "The Ring General" defeated Sheamus, Kofi Kingston, and Jey Uso on his way to the final, and won against Randy Orton in Saudi Arabia to become king and earn a shot at Damian Priest. 

During a recent appearance on Booker T's "Hall of Fame" podcast, Gunther noted how important the tournament was for him, and how much he enjoyed being in it.

"It's a great accomplishment," Gunther said. "I've always been a big fan of tournaments. I've always enjoyed professional wrestling out of the competitive aspect, so the King of the Ring, like, when I knew I'm going to be in there and I'm going to go all the way, yeah I was excited for that because that's, like I said, it's a format that I'm really excited about. Then especially to the King of the Ring, there's a lot of history and it's in many cases, if you were able to win the King of the Ring, that's a career changing or life changing happening. It's a big opportunity, and I was aware of that, and yeah got me to SummerSlam now. So it was a big deal for me to win the tournament."

Orton wasn't exactly happy with the finish of the final, claiming that his shoulders weren't down for the winning pinfall. He will get an opportunity to exact revenge when he faces Gunther for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Bash in Berlin on August 31.

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