Surprises Emerge, Originals Ousted In Gauntlet Match Revamp On WWE Raw

WWE's plan for the upcoming Intercontinental Championship match at WrestleMania took a sharp turn last night on Monday Night Raw. While six names were announced for a Gauntlet match to determine GUNTHER's challenger, the chosen competitors differed significantly from earlier hints dropped by the company.

Originally, the competition seemed to be building towards R-Truth and The Miz vying for a shot at the title. Both wrestlers were featured on the show but in a segment unrelated to the Gauntlet match, leaving fans surprised by their absence.



On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer shed light on the apparent shift in plans: "The interesting thing is if you remember last week when they were building this up, two of the key guys they were building up for this were The Miz and R-Truth and they were nowhere to be seen."

Bryan Alvarez further pointed out their presence on the show, albeit in a different capacity: "They were on the show but in a segment playing video games and not part of the Gauntlet match."

Meltzer offered his take on the potential reasoning: "I think the deal must have been that they were gonna go with them and then they just decided, whatever they're gonna do, they want better wrestlers. Because you can see they loaded it up with Ricochet who hasn't been around, JD who came from NXT."

The final Gauntlet match participants include Ricochet, Chad Gable, Sami Zayn, Bronson Reed, Shinsuke Nakamura, and JD McDonagh. While the reasons behind the change remain unclear, WWE's heavy promotion of Sami Zayn and Chad Gable suggests they might be the frontrunners to challenge GUNTHER at WrestleMania for the Intercontinental Championship.

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