WWE NXT has changed a lot over the past few months, and Imperium remains one of the last remnants of the black-and-gold era.
Stars like Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly, and Johnny Gargano have left the company, while Tommaso Ciampa seemingly had his sendoff following NXT Stand & Deliver on Saturday. In the aftermath of all these departures, Gunther’s stable is still standing.
Speaking with Nick Hausman of Wrestling Inc. at a media event ahead of WrestleMania 38, the trio discussed the fact that they’re endured so much turnover. Marcel Barthel explained that Imperium is old-school, and they do the basics better than anyone else. Plus, they stand apart from the colorful characters who have been featured in the 2.0 era.
Barthel: “I think we worked very, very long and very hard for that. It’s nothing we ever tried to achieve or anything like that. It just organically happened. And I think a lot of people probably expected us to not survive the transition to 2.0, but it actually made us stronger. Everything that we do stood out even more with all those very colorful and bright characters. Because at the end of the day, we’ll always go back to the old school, no matter if you talk about Style, you talk about professional wrestling or whatever, it always go back to the good old basics and nobody does it better than we do. And it’s all nice and cool to have the glitz and the glamour, but when it comes down to the basics, it always gonna be Imperium.”
In the same interview, the group discussed the representation of European wrestling in WWE.
Gunther: It’s great because Europe has a rich history when it comes to wrestling. And it took a while because when the wrestling business was popular in Europe, it kind of died down when American wrestling came on television in Europe and it took a while to pick back up again. But now European talent is everywhere. I think the European wrestling style is very unique, very exciting. Yeah, it’s good to see.
Fabian: I love that we are able to represent the European style so well. I think we all take a lot of pride in that because of you think about European style being represented over here, there’s no way anybody else does it better than Imperium.
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