During an appearance on the “No Holds Barred” podcast with the Toronto Sun’s Rob Wong and Postmedia wrestling writer Jan Murphy, WWE Hall of Famer Billy Gunn shared his thoughts on the current state of the industry. Gunn, who is active on a limited basis and coaches for All Elite Wrestling, discussed the differences between modern match structures and traditional wrestling psychology.
Following his initial run as a full-time competitor in WWE, he transitioned into a coaching role, serving as a trainer for the reality television series WWE Tough Enough and later as a coach at the WWE Performance Center. Since joining AEW in 2019, he has continued to mentor younger talent on the roster.
He expressed concern that the current generation of performers prioritizes executing complex maneuvers over fundamental storytelling.
“Just the basics. I just feel like all the basics are thrown out the windows because it’s all about moves,” Gunn stated. “Now it’s not about moves. People are still into the story and telling that we do, and I love to coach. I really do….I guess, if you were to ask my kids, I’m a little bit on the not, I wouldn’t say the harder side, but I want you to learn. I’m not here just to pat you on the back because you know how to do a headlock takeover. That’s not a thing. I honestly want everybody that I coach to have the career that I had, and to do that it takes work. It’s not like this was just handed to me, and go, ‘Hey, you’re a WWE superstar, or you’re an AEW superstar, and here, this is all for you.’ No, you have to go out and get it. You have to want to get it, and it’s going to take a toll on you. That’s why you have to be very, very secure with who you are, and be willing to just put it out there.”
Gunn names some wrestlers who he feels should slow things down a bit:
“They all like to do a lot of moves. They’re all very talented,” Gunn explained. “My kids, I have to put in there, because I think Colton and Austin are amazing. And not just because they’re my kids, it’s just they get it, and they put in a lot of work. MJF, of course, is one of the top ones. I think Swerve has come a long way. There’s Will Ospreay. He’s just so talented he doesn’t know what to do with himself half the time. And it’s just the way that they structure stuff. I wish would change just a little bit so they’re just not completely whatever to the 100 miles an hour all the time just because I want them to do this for a while. We get into this not to do it for two years, but have a good career, and I think sometimes they just need to dial it back a little bit, understand where they are on the card and what this match is trying to accomplish, where it’s trying to get us to and then just go like that. But these they just want to put it all out there on the line every single night, and it just takes a toll on you. It does, because they do some amazing stuff now that would ruin me these days.”
Gunn, who experienced the rigorous live event touring schedule of the WWE during the 1990s and 2000s, elaborated on the physical toll the profession takes on the human body.
“First of all, our bodies weren’t made to do this, whether whatever you think we land on in that ring, whatever your conception is of that, it’s the total opposite,” Gunn said. “It’s not because people think whatever, it’s a trampoline. It’s super soft, or whatever. Okay, but try hitting that 300 days out of the year….Just sit at your house and fall down on the ground just a bunch of times. And you’ll do it about three times and go, ‘Yeah, that’s good for me.’ We do it night in and night out, we go and we go and train, and we do it night in and night out and day and day and training. It’s the constant. It’s not just the one time or two times that somebody went, ‘Well, this is easy.’ Okay, yeah, all right. Okay, you did it one time. We do it every single day, almost 365 days a year.”
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