Gunther’s next victim will earn their fate next Friday

There’s a lot of speculation about who WWE Intercontinental champion Gunther will face at WrestleMania 39. Will the first of his hopefully many matches at the Showcase of the Immortals be against Brock Lesnar? Both Banger Bros Sheamus & Drew McIntyre?

Perhaps we’ll know more after the Ring General’s next title defense. Gunther’s averaged about one per month since winning the belt from Ricochet 239+ days ago, so it’s time to see who he’ll chop the soul out of in February.

SmackDown announced that one of four men — Rey Mysterio, Karrion Kross, Santos Escobar or Madcap Moss — will win the right to be Gunther’s next victim on their Feb. 10 episode.

Mysterio is currently building to a feud with his son, Dominik. Dom will be looking for payback after his old man out NASCAR-ed his son at the LA Coliseum last week, so taking Rey out before or during this match would advance their story and save the legend from taking an Austrian-sized beating before a big WrestleMania match. Or they could have the elder Mysterio win next week, then have Dom take him out before the title match itself.

The odds you give to the other three men probably depends on how you think WWE management currently values them. Triple H seems to like Escobar… does he like him enough that he wouldn’t book him as Gunther fodder? Kross’ stock doesn’t appear to be going up these days. Moss has had his supporters in the past, but we haven’t seen any signs the current regime views him as more than a midcard hand. Karrion, Madcap, and their ladies spent the last couple months feuding… will they cancel each other out, or does Moss finally get a televised win over Kross, however dubious a prize a match with Gunther might be?

We’ll find out next Friday, when we’ll also see if the AWOL Jey Uso shows up to defend the SmackDown Tag titles with his brother against Braun Strowman & Ricochet.

Place your bets.