GUNTHER Discusses Importance Of WWE Intercontinental Championship & Raising The Bar

GUNTHER is less than 50 days away from surpassing Hony Tonk Man's 454-day reign as Intercontinental Champion, and as "The Ring General" inches closer to making history, he is fully aware of the legacy attached to a title held by more than a dozen WWE Hall of Famers.

"It is very important obviously," GUNTHER told "Contralona" in a recent interview. "I take great pride in doing it. It might be to the title legacy but also building my own legacy. It's been a big responsibility so far but also a great experience, I am really enjoying it and I put all my effort into that, all the energy that I have. So far, like I said It's been a great ride, let's see how far we can go with it".

GUNTHER is also aware that many of his predecessors used the IC Championship — the proverbial "workhorse title" — as a stepping stone to elevate to main event status in the WWE. In contrast, GUNTHER hopes to use his historic reign to bring back prestige to a title that, he believes, lost its importance in the years prior to his reign. 

"I want to be the guy that raises the bar of how serious our sports gets taken to a highest possible level, and I think that with Intercontinental Championship, I will be able to raise the bar again, as it was down for a while, but I've always done that with title runs outside WWE or even in NXT UK," GUNTHER explained. "I care about this sport a lot, I think I care about it more than most of the colleagues out there and that's what I want to deliver in the ring. 

"I would say that I am almost a very selfless guy because all my energy goes into keeping the standards of this sport up and everybody benefits from them."

Fresh off a successful title defense against Matt Riddle, GUNTHER will now turn his attention to Drew McIntyre, his rumored opponent at SummerSlam. WWE has announced a face-to-face confrontation between "The Scottish Warrior" and GUNTHER for Monday's "WWE Raw" a week after GUNTHER challenged McIntyre to a match.