This week on WWE Raw, it was announced that a Gauntlet match will be held next week to determine who will face Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER at WrestleMania. Six names were announced, but it appears that two names that were originally scheduled for the match have bene pulled.
WWE has announced that Ricochet, Chad Gable, Sami Zayn, Bronson Reed, Shinsuke Nakamura, and JD McDonagh will compete in the Gauntlet match. WWE has teased several of the names listed below as potential challengers for GUNTHER, but two of them, McDonagh and Reed, seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Last week, WWE appeared to be teasing R-Truth and The Miz as potential challengers. The topic was discussed on Wrestling Observer Radio, and Dave Meltzer said, “The interesting thing is if you remember last week when they were building this up, two of the key guys they were building up for this were The Miz and R-Truth and they were nowhere to be seen.”
Alvarez pointed out that Miz and Truth appeared on the show, but in a video game segment rather than in the Gauntlet match. Meltzer stated, “I think the deal must have been that they were gonna go with them and then they just decided, whatever they’re gonna do, they want better wrestlers. Because you can see they loaded it up with Ricochet who hasn’t been around, JD who came from nowhere.”
Whatever the plan is/was for the Gauntlet match, WWE appears to be heavily teasing that Sami Zayn and/or Chad Gable will compete for the IC Title at WrestleMania.
