WWE: 5 Dream Opponents for Drew Gulak in NXT
By Bryan Heaton
Marcel Barthel
Though Marcel Barthel seems to be making the NXT rounds as part of a tag team with Fabian Aichner, seeing him in singles competition isn’t out of the realm of possibility. And while he’s now known for being Aichner’s partner in “The European Union,” it’s Barthel’s association with Ringkampf on the independent scene that makes an encounter with Gulak intriguing to me.
For those who may not be as familiar with Ringkampf as others, it’s a stable of wXw wrestlers who also made frequent appearances in PROGRESS. Besides Barthel (then known as Axel Dieter Jr.), Ringkampf included Timothy Thatcher and WALTER. The Ringkampf philosophy? Die matte ist heilig, which translates to “the mat is sacred.”
If you can’t see why I’d want to see Barthel, who literally founded a stable based on the idea of the wrestling ring being the most special place on the planet, face Drew Gulak, a master mat technician, I can’t explain it any more. Barthel is a fomer wXw Undisputed Champion, and he’s generally seen as one of the next big things in NXT. His early television appearances, though resulting in losses, were against high-profile talents like Keith Lee, so that’s still possible.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing Barthel and Gulak have a 12-15 minute TakeOver match that establishes Barthel as a major player. Fans in Europe have known for a while that Barthel is a big deal, and Gulak is more than capable of helping him to look like a superstar.