WWE: Gunther on His Upcoming Match Against Goldberg & Being Goldberg’s Retirement Opponent, More on NXT June 24, 2025 Viewership, More News

Gunther Comments on His Upcoming Match Against Goldberg & Being Goldberg’s Retirement Opponent

A recent episode of The Ringer’s The Masked Man Show podcast featured current WWE World Heavyweight Champion Gunther as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Gunther’s thoughts about his upcoming match against Goldberg for Goldberg’s retirement match at this July’s Saturday Night’s Main Event show.

“Yeah, I thrive in that (being the villain). I think it’s a great scenario because that’s the other way now. We just talked about how I saw Goldberg when I grew up. One, I’m not a fan anymore. I’m a professional and it’s my duty to… I have to think about what’s best to do to the entertainment of everyone, and it’s gonna be my job to, yeah, take that special moment away from everyone and I feel like that struggle leading there is gonna be interesting. I think it’s an interesting situation all-around because the big question is obviously to a degree… Goldberg is 58 at that point. Does he still got it? How’s that match gonna look like? What kind of performance are we gonna see from him? … With this being his last match, being for the World Heavyweight Championship, I think it’s all the ingredients for a very special scenario that is a little bit out of the norm that we usually see, and I love being involved in those situations. Similar — obviously, very different — but similar to the Pat McAfee stuff. I enjoyed doing that because it was just a different setup, a different scenario. I can have a good match with a good opponent. That’s what I get paid to do. Nothing less is expected. But there’s like, different scenarios and that’s what makes it really interesting for me. So I’m looking forward to that.”

Gunther also gave his thoughts about how him being Goldberg’s final opponent for his wrestling career felt like it came out of the blue for him.

“I feel like it’s a little bit out of the blue, because that’s nothing I would have expected, and that was also obviously — I don’t know — how I got up in wrestling or I got brought up, I feel like Goldberg is the complete opposite of how I would have imagined a wrestler that I really look up to. But, also, I’m able to understand that business is done differently as well. There’s different styles and just over here, the showmanship, the looks of a person are maybe sometimes more important than how technically finesse we are in the ring. I don’t wanna touch the style and it’s very successful. So in that aspect, being in WWE in the position that I am now, being able to — and that’s the thing with Goldberg is… like I said before, you can say whatever you want about him but, he’s one of the most outstanding guys in the history of this business and seeing a lot of the guys that he had before, it’s a great opportunity for me to step into the position now to be his last opponent because with all due respect, that’s what it is. I gain from that, being in the ring with Bill Goldberg because when he shows up, there’s a lot of interest in that and yeah, happy I got that opportunity.”

Transcript h/t: Figthful.com

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More on WWE NXT June 24, 2025 Viewership

The June 24th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT gain a large increase in overall viewership.

NXT drew 729,000 viewers and a 0.16 key demographic rating on The CW.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s mixed results this week was due to weaker than usual sports competition and the large increase from their Over 50 demographic viewership and older key demographic viewership groups, which its percentages were not given. This reportedly offset the large decline from their younger key demographic viewership, which was down 16.7% compared to last week’s show.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the MLB game of Atlanta Braves vs. New York Mets drew 440,000 viewers on TBS, the WNBA game of Los Angeles Sparks vs. Chicago Sky drew 242,000 viewers on NBA TV, the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer game of Panama vs. Jamaica drew 122,000 viewers on FS1, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch drew 785,000 viewers on History Channel, 1000-LB Sisters drew 501,000 viewers on TLC, The Valley drew 359,000 viewers on BRAVO, and Chopped drew 441,000 viewers on Food Network.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 218,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 65.6% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 19.3% in overall viewership but down 8% in key demographic viewership.

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WWE News & Notes

Friday’s WWE Speed show on Twitter featured Thea Hail defeating Nikkita Lyons to advance to the Finals of WWE’s newest #1 Contender’s tournament for the WWE Speed Women’s Championship. Hail will be facing off against Alba Fyre in the Finals of WWE’s current tournament.

Friday’s WWE NXT house show event in Fort Pierce, Florida featured Blake Monroe, former Mariah May, making her official WWE in-ring debut. Monroe faced off against Laney Reid in a singles match, which was won by Monroe.

Friday’s 2025 NHL Entry Draft event in Los Angeles, California featured Bayley making a special guest appearance as the presenter for the San Jose Sharks’ First Round draft pick, which was Michael Misa at the #2 overall pick in this year’s draft.

Joaquin Wilde and musician and producer XENNON recently released a new single that pays tribute to the golden age of Japanese Puro wrestling. This single is titled “Emerald Warrior” and pays tribute to Japanese wrestling legend Mitsuhara Misawa.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that around 11.6% of WWE’s total roster is currently out of action with injuries. Meltzer reported that WWE cutting back on the amount of house shows and dates their talent worked so far has not lead to any major spike in the injury rate for their roster. Meltzer also reported that WWE’s injury rate percentage being very similar to AEW’s injury rate percentage for some time also dispels the notion of one promotion or style of wrestling is safer and the other being more negligent or dangerous.

Dave Meltzer also reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that there have been recent rumors and talk of WWE holding a residency stay at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada in the future. Meltzer reported that the idea is that the building would host major NXT events and enable WWE to cut down on costs compared to their travel shows for the NXT brand. Meltzer also reported that the idea would also to be to open up a second training site for WWE’s developmental system in Las Vegas.

WWE recently released one new video to their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a singles match of Reese vs. Juventud Guerrera from WCW Great American Bash 1998.

WWE also recently released two new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a “Doring & Roadkill vs. FBI at MSG: From the WWE Vault.” The second new video was a singles match of John Cena vs. Kurt Angle from the June 27, 2002 episode of WWE SmackDown.

In a recent episode of the CarCast podcast, WWE Hall of Famer and co-host Goldberg gave his thoughts about him being doubtful that he would have been able to have a retirement match for his wrestling career without having stem cell treatment. Goldberg stated “I’ve worked my ass off since January. Actually, since February. I planned it out, I did the stem cells, I knew I had a number of weeks off. Let’s be perfectly honest, if a Bioxcellerator didn’t hook me up with the stem cells, I don’t think I’d be able to be doing this. That was something that I strategically needed to place at the beginning so I could chill before slowly getting back into training and getting my shoulder back and hopefully getting my knee back and keeping my spine aligned. There’s a lot that goes into it and I’ve got to be a human being along the way. I have a life to live and I have a family and I have responsibilities. There’s a lot of things you’ve got to do at one time and again, I don’t have anybody helping anymore. I’ve got my agents, but I don’t have assistants and I don’t have anybody working under the roof other than myself. It’ll be a lull after this match because I won’t be wrestling anymore.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent episode of the What Do You Want To Talk About? with Cody Rhodes podcast, co-host Cody Rhodes and guest Kevin Owens gave their thoughts about Rhodes posting a list of opponents he wanted to face in the indies after his departure from WWE in 2016. Rhodes stated “I remember talking to you about the list, which is now kind of this symbol of where we mobilized the fanbase to say, ‘Hey, I’m doing something,’ and it’s not just ‘stay tuned to the next chapter. I’m not done yet.’ There was a promise.” Owens responded stating “It was actually genius to do that because then it made, even some things that might have seemed mundane or not a big deal for some people….for example, some of the names you had on the list. Great wrestlers, not necessarily somebody people would have loved to see you wrestle. Mike Bennett was on the list. I love Mike, but Cody Rhodes vs. Mike Bennett, to me, is not a match people would like to see. Mike is a great wrestler, but I don’t think people would have thought, ‘he and Cody Rhodes would have a killer match,’ but because you put it on the list and the list became this important thing, that match became something people wanted to see. It was a bigger deal because it had hype from that.” Rhodes responded back stating “You helped curate the list. It wasn’t always, ‘Hey, put this person on.’ One you were like, ‘I don’t know, man,’ was Moose. I was trying to be like Batman in this moment where I have a plan and there is a plan behind the plan. Some of these were booked already. Kurt Angle, booked already, have to be on the list. The biggest part was I would ask you about the people out there, and just wrestlers.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)