Like many of today’s stars who paved the way for today’s talent Billy Gunn doesn’t understand what has happened to ring psychology.
As a trainer, coach in AEW and at The Nightmare Factory, a school co-run by Cody Rhodes and QT Marshall, Gunn expressed his frustrations in schooling today’s up and coming talent on ARWP with Eric Novak.
“I don’t teach any of that crazy stuff because it doesn’t get you anywhere. I have a million people who can do the same thing, and they all want to do it. What’s the difference between you doing a Spanish Fly and him doing a Spanish Fly? I don’t get it. That’s all they want to do but okay, you’re not that good at it. Then I’ll see someone who does it really well, and someone else who does it even better. It just becomes a nonstop festival of who can do the biggest moves, trying to kill themselves, fall on their head, or get dumped on their head. And then there’s all the apron stuff. It’s insane,” he complained.
Gunn doesn’t understand why traditional storytelling during a match has been abandoned or ignored by some of today’s stars.
“I don’t get it! In their minds it is not the same thing. Doing it on the apron and in the ring is the exact same move. When you hit the side of the apron it is the same move in the ring. Nobody out there knows that the ring apron is harder than the inside. The whole thing’s hard. What is the difference? For some reason, they think they have to take it to that extreme and there is no storytelling with it….There is no effort or work put into it. I will put it this way, nowadays, nobody knows how to work in general. Working? We get it. Stuff back in the eighties is not going to work now because they have taken it so far to the extreme. You have to have very good basic storytelling for me to follow along. For me to see someone actually wrestle,” he said.
Gunn believes there has to be a reason for two people to want to battle each other in the ring. Without that, matches don’t make a whole lot of sense.
“People just don’t want to see two people just wrestle except people who wrestle because they think people are going to ‘mark out’ for them…They are all just my perceptions of what we need to do. There has to be a reason for me to fight. There has to be a reason for them to like me and hate you,” he said.
Gunn thinks today’s promotions basing their decisions off of social media reactions and chatter is a big mistake.
“I think what we are doing is basing our TV program off the internet and social media. It is not good. We are not going to please everyone….People on social media find a reason to hate everything,” he said.
As far as Gunn’s position in AEW goes, Gunn is waiting for The Acclaimed to sort out their issues before returning.
“I am not a part of The Acclaimed right now. They are having their own little difficulties. They are trying to figure out who the best wrestler alive and they are trying to work out their conflict. Until they work out their conflict they don’t get me. I have tried to talk to them but they aren’t listening anymore. I will come back whenever I feel I need to come back, when things straighten out a little bit,” he said.
