There’s three reported good reasons as to why Gunther and Chad Gable did not go down a WWE Payback on Saturday.
According to Fightful Select, the anticipated battle between the two was put on hold for tonight’s episode of WWE Raw so it didn’t mess up the PLE’s runtime, but it also was in effort to give the match a bigger feel and more of a spotlight on Monday. WWE has been extremely mindful of their PLE runtimes in order so the events don’t overstay their welcome. The exception can obviously be larger stadium shows, but it’s been an effort on the company’s part to make the events a little more digestable.
Third Reason: Gunther Chases The Honky Tonk Man
The third reason for WWE moving it to Raw was the incentive that delaying it for a few more days gets Gunther closer to the heralded record set by Honky Tonk Man many moons ago. HTM held the Intercontinental Title for the longest time in WWE history before he got shaked, rattled and rolled by The Ultimate Warrior at SummerSlam 1988.
Speaking of The Honky Tonk Man, Fightful adds in their.report that despite recently being in Memphis, there were no plans in place to have Gunther destroy the Honky Tonk Man in the ring, let alone have him make a Raw appearance.
The build between Gunther and Gable has been stemming for weeks as the fans have gotten behind Chad Gable as the underdog babyface in this situation, but there is also a noted amount of admiration for Gunther’s ability to establish the Intercontinental Championship as something to be heralded.