WALTER On Who Is Best Wrestler In The World, Why He Didn't Enjoy Survivor Series Match
Walter made his WWE debut in early 2019 and is coming upon his one-year anniversary as NXT UK Champion. That followed over a decade of him working all over the world and many see the Austrian as one of the best wrestlers in the world.
He recently conducted an interview with SPORT1 which ranked him as the second-best wrestler in the world, trailing only Kazuchika Okada. During the interview, Walter was asked who he thought the best wrestler on the planet was.
"You can't just answer a question like that. Wrestling is not a competitive sport, it has a lot to do with personal taste. For me, Brock Lesnar is at the top of the food chain worldwide," said Walter. "He is the most successful and best wrestler. He is financially the most successful but does not have to work as much as others. He is not over-present and you can not see enough of him. He is very smart and is currently at the top for me."
Walter was then asked which wrestlers he looked up to while training as a teenager.
"As a wrestler, I always liked the hard workers. The big stars that were the focus were never my favorites. They entertained me but I often liked the midcard matches better than the big main events. For me, craftsmanship was always the focus of wrestling. When I started sport, I distanced myself from WWE and American wrestling. I've always looked up to Japanese wrestlers. Daniel Bryan and Samoa Joe were people I thought were fantastic even before their WWE days. These people have inspired me more than the classic big superstars," revealed Walter.
Walter had a couple of matches in WWE last year leading up to Survivor Series before taking part in a 5-on-5 match at the event. He was the first person to be eliminated and went out in less than three minutes. Afterwards he expressed disappointment in his Survivor Series experience and Walter explained why.
"I'm generally not a fan of these strange stipulations. For example, I hate triple threat matches. When a promoter told me I had to do a triple threat match, I tried to get out of it," admitted Walter. "It doesn't make sense to me. For me, a competition is an athlete against an athlete, preferably in a tag team. In the Survivor Series there were 15 people in three teams and in the ring there were always three people at the same time. That deteriorates the action a bit. as I imagine wrestling being something else.
"For me, craftsmanship and competition are in the foreground. Human chess with my own body and skills is my priority. I could have drawn my conclusions from that before the match, of course, but overall I think I didn't fit in there."