Gunther Beats Bálor, Priest to Retain WWE World Title at Saturday Night’s Main Event

Gunther beat Finn Bálor and Damian Priest in a Triple Threat match on Saturday Night’s Main Event to retain the World Heavyweight Championship.

The three heavy-hitters took turns demolishing each other as bodies were launched outside of the ring and it looked to be anybody’s game before the champion stepped up to claim what is his.

After a back-and-forth between Priest and Balor, met with counterattacks, Gunther slid in to pull Priest out of the ring and sent him through the stairs. With only Balor left, Gunther powerbombed him and retained the World title.

Dating back to SummerSlam, Bálor has stuck his nose in the business of Gunther and Priest on multiple occasions, and it usually worked in The Ring General’s favor.

At SummerSlam, Gunther challenged Priest for the world heavyweight title, and Bálor turned on Priest in the midst of the match, screwing over his former Judgment Day stablemate and allowing Gunther to win the title.

Gunther and Priest went their separate ways after that, but Priest earned another title opportunity against Gunther at Survivor Series: WarGames, and Bálor once again had some involvement.

Although Gunther stressed the importance of beating Priest without any help, Bálor hit Priest with a stomp while the referee’s back was turned, which played a pivotal role in The Ring General taking Priest down once again.

On the following episode of Raw, Bálor confronted Gunther backstage and expressed his belief that he should be given a World Heavyweight Championship opportunity after helping Gunther win at Survivor Series.

Instead, Gunther made it clear that he was unhappy with the fact that Bálor robbed him of the chance to beat Priest cleanly, so rather than granting Bálor a title bout, he said he would face Dominik Mysterio.

Gunther noted that unlike Bálor, Dominik had beaten Priest before, which was a fact that clearly didn’t sit well with Finn.

After Gunther defeated Dominik, Bálor viciously attacked him and draped the World Heavyweight Championship over his body, adding further insult to injury.

Gunther vs. Bálor was then made official for Saturday Night’s Main Event, but after Bálor orchestrated a beat-down of Priest on the go-home episode of Raw prior to SNME, Priest was added to the match as well to make it a Triple Threat.

Going up against two of his greatest rivals, Gunther got the last laugh at Saturday Night’s Main Event, as well as some revenge by virtue of retaining his title over Bálor and Priest.

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