Shocking New Feud Teased For Gunther After Night Of Champions... (WWE News)
Could we be about to get Gunther vs. Nick Aldis?
Following the events of Night of Champions, it looks like Gunther's next WWE feud could be against... Nick Aldis?
In the Night of Champions triple-threat main event, the Ring General was unsuccessful in his quest to become the WWE Champion, with Sami Zayn shocking the world by pinning Cody Rhodes to walk out of Riyadh with the WWE Title.
Posted to the various WWE socials, Gunther had an altercation with Nick Aldis backstage after that match, with the Austrian saying he hoped Aldis was happy now, that he'd been screwed multiple times, and labelled Nick a "failed wrestler" who was jealous of him. Gunther then pushed the SmackDown General Manager, who initially tried to defuse the situation, but eventually told Gunther to "get the f**k off of me", as the two had to be separated by officials.
So, could this all be leading to Nick Aldis lacing up the boots and making his WWE in-ring debut? That's certainly the suggestion here, and Big E said as much during the Night of Champions post-show, pondering whether this is "leading to something more" as he pointed out that Aldis is somebody who's done some "big things in this industry".
For those only familiar with Nick Aldis for his time as the SmackDown GM and his role as a producer for the company, the 39-year-old Englishman has quite the résumé, coming up on the UK independent scene in the mid-2000s before landing in TNA in 2009. There, he became the TNA World Champion, had two runs as the TNA Tag Team Champions (one with Doug Williams, one with Samoa Joe), and also won the IWGP Tag Team Championships (with Williams) and NOAH's GHC Tag Team Championships (with Joe).
2017 saw Aldis win the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship, defeating Tim Storm for the Ten Pounds of Gold before later losing that title to Cody Rhodes at the game-changing All In in 2018. He'd regain the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship from Cody one month later, and go on a staggering 1,043-day reign atop the National Wrestling Alliance, leading the charge as the National Treasure when the NWA launched its all-kinds-of-fun NWA Powerrr series. The pandemic would hit the NWA and Powerrr hard, and Aldis would eventually depart the company in late 2022 after being unhappy with the direction Billy Corgan was taking the legendary organisation. A return to TNA followed in 2023, before Nick landed in WWE in August 2023, initially solely as a producer, before being introduced as an on-screen character that October.
It's worth noting that Nick Aldis has never formally retired from the ring, and he's teased in several interviews over recent years that he'd be interested in wrestling for WWE should the timing be right. The closest we've gotten previously to that happening was when things regularly got heated between Aldis and Drew McIntyre, but that ultimately didn't result in a match between the two. However, it could well be that we now finally see the incredibly talented Brit finally lace up his boots in a WWE ring after this incident with Gunther, even if that's just for a one-off contest.
Either way, this certainly seems one to keep an eye on when SmackDown rolls around later this week.