GUNTHER successfully defended the WWE Intercontinental Championship against Chad Gable this week on WWE RAW, and a new report from Fightful Select has revealed why the match wasn’t booked for Payback 2023.
According to the report, WWE made the decision to schedule Gable vs. GUNTHER for RAW as opposed to putting it on Payback 2023 which only comprised six matches in total.
The decision was in part due to a continuation of WWE’s aim to keep runtimes of pay-per-view events down so they don’t run longer than the optimum timeframe.
This was the exact reason why WWE didn’t book Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus for SummerSlam 2023 and instead scheduled the match for RAW before putting an end to the feud at Sunday’s WWE Payback 2023 pay-per-view event.
In addition, WWE booked the title match for RAW in order to get GUNTHER a step closer to the longest-reigning Intercontinental Championship record before the match took place.
GUNTHER has held the Intercontinental Championship for 452 days as of Tuesday and will break The Honky Tonk Man’s recognized record of 454 days on Thursday.
Having the Intercontinental Title match on RAW allows WWE to add drama to the proceedings and highlight it more than it would have been at Payback 2023.
A WWE source has also indicated saying that The Honky Tonk Man was never really considered for last week’s RAW, which took place in Memphis, TN. There were speculations that the Hall of Famer might appear as GUNTHER got ever closer to his record.
