AJ Styles Opines on Gunther’s Booking Since Retiring Him Deemed as the Biggest Flop of 2026

Gunther has been on a downward spiral lately. AJ Styles has commented on whether he's been the biggest flop this year.

AJ Styles Opines on Gunther’s Booking Since Retiring Him Deemed as the Biggest Flop of 2026

Gunther and AJ Styles on Raw [via- WWE]

Gunther will forever hold the distinction of being the one who retired WWE’s evergreen hero in John Cena. Over a month later, ‘The Ring General’ ended AJ Styles‘ WWE career too. It even earned the moniker of ‘The Career Killer’. And it’s not lost on anyone that the Austrian sent the WCW icon Goldberg packing into retirement as well.

Having retired three legends of the game in a span of 6 months, the fans expected Gunther to be booked as an absolute menace in the follow-up. However, he’s been only losing matches since WrestleMania and has notably failed to capture the Undisputed WWE Title in any of the three opportunities he’s had of late.

Moreover, he sustained a pinfall loss in a tag team match against CM Punk and Cody Rhodes this past weekend at Saturday Night’s Main Event to dash his hopes of being added to the world title match at SummerSlam. The losing streak that Gunther’s been on in recent months led Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer to say that he’s been the biggest flop story of 2026.

Alvarez’s assessment was brought up on the latest episode of Styles’ Phenomenally Retro podcast. His co-host, Tony Giles, personally thought that the follow-up to Gunther ending the careers of Goldberg, John Cena, and AJ Styles has been embarrassing. Giles also didn’t seem elated with the former Imperium leader feuding with a general manager now.

Styles said he understood the frustration but added there’s not much WWE can do. He mentioned that Gunther can’t always retire the stars he works with. The 49-year-old was confused by what the company is trying to do with the Vienna-born wrestler. When his co-host suggested that WWE could very well put the world title on Gunther, AJ thought it was needed because there’s no heel champion right now.

‘The Face That Runs the Place’ noted how the likes of Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, CM Punk, and Cody Rhodes are tweeners in their respective rivalries at the moment. Styles stated there’s no clear bad guy in there that’s absolutely hated by the audience. The former Bullet Club leader eventually segued into telling a short story about running into Gunther around WrestleMania 42.

Styles and his wife spotted ‘The Ring General’ browsing watches at a store in Vegas, so they decided to surprise him. As ‘Mr. TNA’ was talking about the former Imperium leader being a hated on-screen villain, he described him as being equally nice in real life and the go-to man for anyone that’s high on quality watches.

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Gunther will take on Nick Aldis at SummerSlam

In less than two weeks, Gunther will take on Nick Aldis in what would be the SmackDown general manager’s WWE in-ring debut match. The Englishman decked the Austrian with the WWE title back at Saturday Night’s Main Event to get his payback for Gunther assaulting him on SmackDown a week before that. They brawled in front of Triple H during the SummerSlam kickoff event as well.

Gunther and Nick Aldis
Gunther and Nick Aldis [via- WWE]

It prompted the WWE CCO to announce their match for SummerSlam. ‘The Terminator’ has constantly complained about being mistreated by Aldis ever since coming to SmackDown. They first came to blows after Night of Champions, where Sami Zayn became the world champion.

Even though Gunther didn’t get pinned in that three-way also featuring Cody Rhodes, ‘The Ring General’ was seething over the result and held Aldis accountable for his misery.

The former NWA World Champion showed during that backstage skirmish with the erstwhile Walter that he wouldn’t back down from any sort of aggression. And now that he’s finally getting ‘The Career Killer’ in an official capacity at SummerSlam, the GM of the blue brand will look to showcase a side of his that’s foreign to the core audience of WWE.

Aldis last wrestled in August 2023 before joining the Stamford-based promotion. The WWE Universe had been clamoring for Nick Aldis to get in the ring, and it’d come to fruition against Gunther.

However, it’s certainly a difficult situation for WWE to be in because would they let a general manager wrestling his first match in WWE to beat Gunther? It remains to be seen.

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