Before Dominik Mysterio made his grand entrance at WrestleMania 39, wheeled out to the ring at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, in a paddy wagon with a quartet of “police officers” serving as his escort, WWE played a promo package featuring prison footage in order to play up the “Prison Dom” moniker.

On paper, that makes sense, right? Mysterio famously “went to jail” on Christmas for interrupting his family's Christmas festivities and has been playing more and more into that fact with each passing month, drawing a teardrop next to his left eye and discussing how his experience changed him into the cold, hardened man willing to scream at his mother that fans see on screen today.

The only problem with this presentation? Someone in the WWE production department included footage of Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp, in the opening segment, as was pointed out by multiple fans online and initially compiled by Wrestling Attitude.

After becoming privy to the information, the Auschwitz museum released a statement on Twitter condemning the decision, telling the world, “The fact that Auschwitz image was used to promote a WWE match is hard to call ‘an editing mistake.' Exploiting the site that became a symbol of enormous human tragedy is shameless and insults the memory of all victims of Auschwitz.”

Clearly placed in a bad spot, which, weirdly enough, isn't the first time WWE has gotten into hot water for illuding to the Nazis – Gunther doesn't have a last name for a reason – the company released an official statement to Kyle Melnick of The Washington Post to apologize for their actions.

“We had no knowledge of what was depicted. As soon as we learned, it was removed immediately,” the company said.

Regardless of how the mistake happened, it will be interesting to see how WWE is able to fix it moving forward, as the entrances to Dominik versus Rey have been shared literally millions of times since the duo took the ring on Saturday night. Fortunately, if you want to call it that, WWE does own the master recording of the show, so future viewings of WrestleMania 39 should be without the offending image.

Gunther addresses unwanted stereotypes connected to his WWE character.

Afforded a chance to discuss all things WWE in a pre-WrestleMania appearance on Cheap Heat with Peter Rosenberg for The Ringer, Gunther was asked about being unfairly linked to German and Austrian imagery from the Second World War, from his failed “Gunther Stark” moniker, to being given a rating of 88 in WWE 2K23 – which, in some circles, can refer to “Heil Hitler,” and the general knocks some folks sent Imperium's way, and let it be known that he, like Germany and Austria, have no fond feelings for that part of their history.

“Obviously, like you mention it, that’s the history of the two countries,” Gunther responded via Wrestling Headlines. “That’s something we can never change. We have to live with it. But obviously, that’s something that got thrown at us before and still gets thrown at us. We don’t really acknowledge it because it’s so far away from what the truth is, and often, I also blame it on people … see[ing] the first, obvious thing and jump[ing] on it. It doesn’t represent the culture in our countries, either. Austria and Germany have made huge efforts to be hard on themselves when it comes to their history and keep themselves in check.

“It’s something I think everyone from there, and when I talk with [Ludwig] Kaiser that’s one of the things we’re most proud about when it comes to our cultures. There’s no nice talking about stuff like that, and people who try? They get run over right away. There’s no way to justify any of that. I think we shouldn’t mix up ideologies and stylistics if that makes sense. Everything we want to be is far away from that.”

Unfortunately for Gunther, his imposing presence, stoic demeanor, thick accent, and villainous ways may never be able to escape the obvious comparisons to 1950s Europe, as that remains the cultural touchstone for bad guys from that part of the world. Still, shutting down any connection between himself, Ludwig Kaiser, and Giovani Vinci to that era of history is the right call, as there's no cheaper heat in professional wrestling than alluding to the Nazis. For a performer like Gunther, who has largely played the same character since he was chopping Keith Lee in PWG as WALTER, making such a swift statement to fans now that he's on a larger stage like WrestleMania is admirable.