I didn’t get the chance to write about this when it happened, but I happen to think WWE made a huge creative mistake in not having Chad Gable end GUNTHER’s Intercontinental title run a few weeks ago, just before GUNTHER broke the record. I feel about that match the way other people feel about Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns at WrestleMania. You had the chance to really make a guy, and you didn’t take it. And while I was heartened initially by the fact that the feud seemed to be continuing, it still felt a little bit like the moment had passed.

Then Gable lost a match clean to Bronson Reed two weeks ago, and then he and Otis lost a tag team match clean to Imperium this week, and now it looks like Imperium might have moved on to DIY, and I’m starting to get really worried that “they pulled the trigger too late” is the best case scenario at this point, and that the more likely scenario involves not pulling the trigger at all. Which would just suck so hard, man. Chad Gable has been casually having great matches on “Raw” basically since Paul Levesque took over creative, if not before; he’s the perfect guy to hold the IC belt after GUNTHER because he’s an absolute workhorse who can embody all the traits you typically want in an IC Champion while also being elevated by the belt itself. Can we please just give him the thing? I would have done it before GUNTHER broke the record just for narrative reasons, but if you really needed him to break the record, fine. He’s done that now. It’s past time, for me, that GUNTHER was dethroned, and I can’t think of a single better option to dethrone him but Gable, and they already sowed the seeds of another match between them … but I don’t know. Not sure if it’s happening at this point. The tag loss Monday night was deflating, and the promo Gable cut backstage was … I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t explictly “Don’t worry, I’m challenging GUNTHER for the title again,” which is what I was after.

And hey, maybe I just need to let it play out, as they say. Maybe Gable as Intercontinental Champion is still the plan. But momentum is everything in wrestling, and frankly I don’t trust WWE creative to do the things I want them to do, so I’m just gonna keep being worried about it until it actually happens.