“I Refuse”: Gunther Takes Foreign Heel Status to Another Level by Disrespecting Americans

A lot of WWE wrestlers carry their in ring gimmick in real life too. Like The Undertaker who continued wearing black in public and hardly interacted with fans outside WWE during his entire ‘Deadman’ gimmick in the company. Similarly, some heels continue their villainous persona even outside the ring.

As in the case of ‘The Ring General’ Gunther blatantly refused to acknowledge a cherished sport by the name given by the Americans.

Gunther refuses to call NFL as football

To all Americans, there are many sports that the fans love like America’s favorite pastime baseball, basketball, or even pro wrestling. But there is one sport so revered that even the Half Time show of its finals breaks the internet every single time.

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We are talking about the NFL which is called American Football in all of North America. As everyone knows, the NFL is the talk of the town around the time of the Super Bowl finals. Even a 30-sec ad spot during the Super Bowl goes for around $7 million. That’s how coveted and revered this sporting extravaganza is for all of America.

Recently ‘The Ring General’ Gunther who just became the second longest reigning Intercontinental champion in history attended an NFL game. He took a few digs at the NFL, he refused to call it by the name the Americans know it as.

In a Twitter post, he said, “My first NFL experience. Incredible athletes, more advertisement than competition, more stop and go than the traffic on the way there. I refuse to call it Football. Incredible Stadium, very much suited for the best Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion of all time. Thank you.”

Being an Austrian from Europe, football for him is a totally different sport and hence he blatantly refused to call NFL by the same name. In the US, the European brand of football is known as soccer, the football is broadly used to describe NFL, American football.

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But this is not the first time foreign heels have shown disrespect to the USA as part of their gimmick. In its history of 40 years, WWE has had many foreign heels that fans loved to hate.

WWE’s foreign heels are used

It’s always an uneasy scene when you see someone bring up their own country’s flag and start waving it in your country. Such was the case with foreign heels in the WWE back in the day.

Top stars like Bret Hart, the late The Iron Sheik, and Yokozuna would come to the ring waving their respective countries’ flags high and talk down about the US. This always irked the American fans who would often boo such stars upon their entry.

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Sometimes they would even criticize the American culture and public during promos infuriating the audience even further. Hence fans hated the very sight of them upon their entrance.