Dutch Mantell feels WWE missed 35-year-old star on SmackDown who could "beat the sh*t" out of anybody (Exclusive)

Former WWE employee and on-screen manager Dutch Mantell feels SmackDown is incomplete without the Intercontinental Champion Gunther.

The Austrian Anomaly was one of the biggest Draft picks this year, changing brands from SmackDown to RAW. In fact, the red brand picked up the whole of Imperium in what could be termed a trade-off that saw the United States Champion Austin Theory move to SmackDown.

Dutch Mantell was on Sportskeeda Wrestling's Smack Talk this week, reviewing the go-home show before Night of Champions. He mentioned that SmackDown sorely missed The Ring General this week. He claimed that whenever the show was bad, WWE could always have Gunther beat up somebody, and fans would love it.

"You know who SmackDown missed tonight badly? Gunther. They missed him. I missed him. When it all goes to hell and hen baskets, send Gunther out there to beat the sh*t out of somebody." [30:57 - 31:12]

You can watch the full video here:

You can catch the full results of SmackDown here.

Gunther will face Mustafa Ali at WWE Night of Champions

Since moving to the red brand, Gunther has been looking for a worthy challenger to face him for the Intercontinental Championship.

A couple of weeks ago, a Battle Royal was organized on RAW to determine the next challenger for The Ring General. Mustafa Ali stepped up and won this match. In fact, Imperium's Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci played a part in Ali's victory, eliminating Matt Riddle from the matchup.

Intercontinental Champion @Gunther_AUT defends against @AliWWE TODAY at #WWENOC!

1PM ET/10AM PT
Streaming exclusively on @peacock in U.S. and @WWENetwork everywhere else.

🦚: pck.tv/3bqfYSq
🌎: WWENetwork.com https://t.co/n4TQzprBDm

Now, as WWE heads to Saudi Arabia, Ali will have to rely on his newfound positive attitude and guile to pull off a major upset against the dominant Austrian Bruiser.

Do you think Ali will manage to pick up a win over Gunther? Let us know in the comments section below.

If you use the quotes from this article, please embed the YouTube video and add a H/T to Sportskeeda for the transcript.