Three months after GUNTHER captured the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam, Damien Priest is finally getting his rematch. The two combatants came face-to-face on November 11's "WWE Raw" to build toward their bout at Survivor Series, with Priest interrupting GUNTHER mere seconds into his in-ring promo. Priest was especially aggressive with his statements, catching GUNTHER off-guard and exposing some cracks in his tough guy veneer. On "Busted Open After Dark," Tommy Dreamer applauded Priest's choice of words, and also appreciated the way GUNTHER reacted to them. He said GUNTHER's subtle body language reminded him of one WWE Hall of Famer, who, at first glance, couldn't be more different.

"[Priest] kinda shuts GUNTHER up," Dreamer observed. "Finally, I believed in him. I believed in him as a babyface, but I believed in him as a badass. Why? Because of what GUNTHER was doing. If I go to old-school wrestling, Ric Flair ... he would sell the babyface when a babyface is talking." Dreamer noted all the instances when Flair would quietly digest his opponent's words before suddenly reacting with an exaggerated hair flip or shake of the head. "What Ric was doing was selling the babyface without actually having moves," Dreamer said. "He'd get so mad he'd start taking off his clothes, in the sense of ripping off his shirt, taking off his jacket ... but when would he do it? When the babyface would deliver a hot line."

GUNTHER's character has gone through a noticeable evolution since joining WWE, with the "Ring General" demonstrating more acting chops and charisma on the mic. His verbal dress down of Bret "The Hitman" Hart from September 9's "Raw," in which he humorously claimed Bill Goldberg was his favorite wrestler, was particularly memorable.