Billy Gunn says Triple H’s shot at AEW during D-Generation X’s 2019 WWE Hall of Fame induction was “a dick move,” and that the only person it hurt was Triple H.
DX went into the Hall of Fame on April 6, 2019, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, with Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Road Dogg, Gunn, Sean Waltman, and Chyna inducted. Gunn was already working for AEW, which had not yet run its first show. When fans chanted “AEW” during the speech, Triple H told Gunn that Vince McMahon would buy “that piss-ant company” just to fire him again.
Speaking to Kenny McIntosh on Inside The Ropes, Gunn said he expected something to happen that night.
“I knew it was coming. I kind of knew they were going to do something AEW because it was hot at the time and I was there and they were all wondering how I got to go there, and that’s because Tony Khan was super cool. I went, asked, and he said ‘100%. Of course you can. I would never hold you back from that,'” Gunn said. “I didn’t know what they were gonna do, but I knew they were going to do something. I also knew that if they were, Hunter was going to have something to say. Once I set myself up for that, I just let it go.”
“The only one that got hurt out of that whole deal was him. I don’t want to say it, but it was a dick move. It was kind of trying to save face, and you didn’t need to because it’s going to happen. It’s the wrestling business. It’s what we do. They like to stir up shit. When you have somebody in another company, which was me, they can’t believe it, and then you see me, they have to do it. It’s like an unwritten thing in a book. ‘If another guy is in another company, we have to say or do something.’ They started chanting it, and you get a response from the guy leading the company.”
Gunn has talked about the line before. Shortly after the ceremony, he told the 411 Wrestling Interview Podcast that the joke was funny and was not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. At a For The Love of Wrestling Q&A in 2022, he said he could have punched Triple H and let it go because his wife told him to. WWE edited Triple H’s AEW comments out of its later TV broadcast of the ceremony.
