WWE Hall of Famer Billy Gunn is one of many coaches in AEW right now, detailing the key detail he tells the younger generation to succeed.
As one of the shining lights of the Attitude Era’s tag team division, Billy Gunn was a superb choice for All Elite Wrestling to bring on early into the company’s history in a coaching role. ‘The Bad A**’ has been around for various eras of wrestling, obtaining a vast amount of experience and knowledge to pass on.
Speaking with Renee Paquette on her podcast The Sessions, Gunn noted a key aspect he relays to AEW talent to help them progress – just slow down:
“That is a great question and it is extremely hard to do. You have to have a trust with all talent when you do that. And it’s not like, ‘Okay, you’re the head coach so I instantly trust you’ or, ‘Hey, you’ve been doing this for 30-something years, I instantly trust you.’ It’s not a thing. It’s just not how we’re built or how we’re programmed to do it. If they would just trust it and understand that we’re here to show you that direction and get you over like a bunch of wrestling moves is just a bunch of wrestling moves.
If I don’t have emotion in the people’s backing, they’ll just forget about it the next match they see because they’re gonna see the exact same thing. When you tell them, ‘Okay, how about taking this out?’, they hear, ’You don’t want me to do my stuff?’, and I’m like, ‘That’s not true, it doesn’t have to be a five-star match or WrestleMania match every time you’re out there.’
Like, they’ll do that on Dark, and it’s nothing against the Dark or Elevation show, those are our secondary shows. Even when you’re on Dynamite and Rampage, it doesn’t mean that you have to unload everything you have in seven minutes, that’s crazy. Because now you’re just going through stuff. You’re just going through the motions, and you’re not in it.”
Billy Gunn continued, explaining how if the talent in question doesn’t seem to care about telling a story, then it’s impossible for him – or indeed anyone else – to care as well:
“So if you’re not in it, how would you want me to be in it, but then they’ll do something, like some crazy thing that they think that the people are in it, but they’re just reacting because they can’t do that and it’s pretty cool, but it’s very unforgettable. So I think just building trust with the talent and getting them to just, ‘Hey, trust me, just do this one time’, but then they get in there and then they just get again, I have to go through.
I was taught a bunch of wrestling and so I have to do them all. That’s just a thing is just, like, they have to slow down like they don’t realise do you want to do this for a long time or do you just want to do it for a couple of years? Because your body can’t take all that. They’re just beating themselves to death and set up when they get to one of those high calibre matches. Once they get there, what do you have to show me?”
Billy Gunn has been with AEW in both a coaching and in-ring role since the company’s inauguration. He’s recently realigned with The Acclaimed following his sons Austin and Colten turning on him in favour of becoming clients of Stokely Hathaway.