WWE’s GUNTHER, and Ludwig Kaiser reflect on IMPERIUM, and what success means to them…
Ludwig Kaiser and Gunther have been raising the bar in professional wrestling within WWE for many years now, with a focus on restoring the “glory” of old-school wrestling. They did that as part of IMPERIUM (a stable that just reformed at WWE’s recent Clash At The Castle), and now, discuss what legacy, and success mean to the pair.
Success
“For me, it’s about being happy with what you do,” says Kaiser. “It’s important to be confident, and to work your rear-end off to get to where you want to be.” Kaiser never even expected to end up in the WWE in the first place: “I never expected to make a lot of money with this. I did it because my dad was a professional wrestler for 33 years. If I had ended up being 45, and living off the government, that would have been fine for me, because I always wanted to wrestle. So, to me, that would have been success already. Still, I am very happy that it has ended up the way it has.”
“What is success?” asks GUNTHER, “does success equal happiness, I don’t think it does? If you’re really happy do you care about success?” Everybody has to define it individually, according to the imposing Austrian, who defines success (personally), as finding a passion, going after it, and enjoying the process: “In general, there is no finish line in life,” he adds. “You are never done, you always have to make the next step, so I think that’s what it is all about.”
Legacy
When you think of GUNTHER, and Ludwig, it is likely that you’ll think of NXT UK, and as we are approaching the dawn of NXT Europe in WWE, Kaiser reflects on how important that idea of legacy is, as a second-generation performer: “It was always very important to us to leave something behind, and create something for the next generations. I think that we did our part in Europe, and I am very excited about NXT Europe next year!”
For GUNTHER, simply, legacy is very much about leaving a positive example for future performers: “I want people to know that I wasn’t in it just for myself, and I left something behind.”
Listen to the full audio here:
