LUDWIG KAISER has shed light on the parting of ways with GUNTHER, his long-time tag team partner. The two athletes, who were initially united in the European wrestling group Ringkampf and later in WWE’s Imperium, ceased appearing together on WWE programming in late 2024, without any formal declaration.

In a recent Everyone knows interview with KAISER clarified that the decision for a change was mutual. “I don’t think I’ve ever said this anywhere but that was also wanted by me and also by Gunther,” KAISER said (translated from German). He pointed out that while Ringkampf, their original group in Germany’s wXw, had a more egalitarian structure, WWE’s version of Imperium had a different hierarchy.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said this anywhere but that was also wanted by me and also by Gunther,”

“Imperium actually originally comes from wXw,back then it was Ringkampf. And that was structured differently. I would say everyone was more on the same level,becuase everyone had different roles. Back then, it was with Timothy Thatcher, he was the bruiser type, responsible for the dirty work. I was the arrogant snob, the young kid. And WALTER was the enforcer, the guy who comes in and wipes everybody out. But when WWE did Imperium again, me and my former partner were the tag team, and he was the main guy out in front. That just created a different dynamic. So Ringkampf, or even Imperium, my side of Imperium was always different from Gunther’s.”

KAISER and GUNTHER were a tag team from 2016 to 2019 in Ringkampf,along with TIMOTHY THATCHER and CHRISTIAN MICHAEL JAKOBI,before bringing Imperium to NXT UK in 2019 with ALEXANDER WOLFE and GIOVANNI VINCI. GUNTHER has since become a prominent singles competitor and former WWE World Heavyweight Champion, while KAISER is now pursuing his own path.