Hey gang, sorry it’s been awhile, but I’ve got a great excuse nah, I’ve got no excuse. I’ll be straight up with you: I can be a lazy S.O.B. sometimes. I’ve been slacking off and I make no excuses, but I do apologize. Now then, I get lotsa letters, and normally I don’t print any of ’em, but when somebody makes a good point or points out something I wasn’t aware of, I will so without further ado, a couple points I missed in my Justin Credible column:
“Well Ben,
Pete Polaco’s mother and father are Portuguese, as a result he speaks Portuguese perfectly and Portuguese people are generally Caucasian in origin, not Hispanic.
rest of the article was good though.
-Dave
(David.Roebuck2@btinternet.com)”
Something I did not know that does indeed shed some new light on ol’ Aldo Montoya, thanks Dave but was the jockstrap part of Portuguese culture? Well, that’s not really important, so let’s get into this week’s column, where we take a look at a very controversial name on the internet, and coincidentally tie back to one of my previous columns
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that everything in life could be broken down into two extremes: excess and deficiency. He believed that if a person could find the medium or mean between the two extremes in all that they did in life, they would travel down the path to happiness and virtue. With pro wrestling fans, the two extremes are clear: the deficient “mark” enjoys watching wrestling more than anybody but has very little knowledge of anything not on TV, while the excessive “smart” knows every backstage dealing, but as a result can become highly bitter and cynical, losing their ability to enjoy the show. These two extremes view each wrestler differently, often disagreeing with each other. Each week I look at both perspectives and then attempt to find “The Mean” between the two. This week, let’s take a look at Billy Gunn
“Rockabilly,” “Mr. Ass,” “The One ” Billy Gunn has gone by many names during his eight year tenure in the WWF, but none have seemed to quite set the world on fire the way their bearer must have hoped. Gunn is a hard man to figure out; he receives tremendous crowd reactions, has formidable physical gifts, and has received substantial pushes from the backstage powers that on numerous occasions so why has he never held the WWF title? Why has he never main-evented a pay per view? Why does he always seem to find himself either back in a tag team or on Sunday Night Heat and Jakked? Before we try to figure all that out, let’s take a look at the man’s history
Billy Gunn first entered the WWF in 1993 as one half of the Smoking Gunns tag team with his “brother” Bart Gunn. The Gunns have the distinction of being probably the best tag team during a period where the WWF had no good tag teams. The Gunns held the WWF World Tag Team title three times between 1993 and 1996. They started off as babyfaces with the time honored “cowboy” gimmick, complete with jeans, cowboy hats, spurs on their boots, long hair, mustaches, and pistols that fired blanks; they were clearly a team designed for the family oriented, gimmick laden mid ’90s WWF.
In 1996, the Gunns’ act was growing stale, so they were turned heel and paired with popular manager Sunny. They altered their look, trimming their hair and mustaches and shedding most of the cowboy gimmick. Still, the crowd reaction remained somewhat apathetic, and based on his look, physical condition, and natural charisma, the WWF felt that like Shawn Michaels of The Rockers, Billy could be a singles star whereas Bart could not. The team broke up with Bart turning babyface and Billy turning heel. At first, both brothers were drawing solid heat and putting on some decent, if not spectacular, matches. But then, the plan hit a snag as Billy suffered a neck injury in January and would not return until March.
During Billy’s time away, the WWF still expressed little faith in Bart and took him off TV. When Billy returned to receive his big push, his motivation seemed somewhat disjointed as the storyline had Bart injuring him, and when he returned, Bart was gone. The WWF decided Gunn was in need of some direction, so they gave him some but not the kind he needed.
For months, old-time WWF superstar and former WWF Intercontinental champion The Honky Tonk Man had been appearing on WWF TV proclaiming that he would soon unleash a protégé on the WWF. He approached his first choice, mid-card babyface Jesse Jammes, and was violently rejected. Honky promised revenge by saying he would bring a mystery protege to the next pay per view to challenge Jammes. The week before the ppv, Honky approached Gunn about becoming his protégé and was knocked out by a left hand, drawing a huge pop. Clearly the fans were willing to give Billy Gunn a shot as a babyface, but the WWF chose to go a different route.
At In Your House: Revenge of the ‘Taker, Honky Tonk Man debuted his long-awaited protégé to face Jesse Jammes: Billy “Rockabilly” Gunn. With no discernible reason given, Gunn had within a week had a complete change of heart and decided to align with Honky (in all due fairness to the WWF, Honky has since stated that the gimmick was originally intended for WCW’s Disco Inferno, but the WWF was unable to get him under contract and used Gunn as a last minute replacement). Rockabilly had lame Honky-esque music, a cheesy rhinestone jacket, and a bad hair dye job; and to make matters worse, he lost in his first match in the new gimmick to Jammes. Gunn, who just a few months earlier seemed to have huge potential, had become a lame knockoff of a dated eighties gimmick.
As Rockabilly, Billy Gunn had a lukewarm feud with Jammes that stretched over a few months, but did little else, making extremely infrequent TV appearances (the most notable appearance coming when he beat his brother Bart, who was brought back for one night only, on RAW). But then, fate struck in the oddest of ways; needing a makeshift team to take on Los Boriquas for an episode of the late, lamented Shotgun Saturday Night, the WWF threw together Gunn and Jammes, figuring they had worked together enough to form a decent one night tag team. Jammes made a decision for the match that after playing the babyface to little to no reaction for the better part of a year, he would resort to his old “Roadie” heel character from his days as a lackey to Jeff Jarrett. The heel Jammes and Rockabilly had remarkable chemistry, and with lack of anything better to do with either guy the WWF stuck them together. The next week on Shotgun Saturday Night, Jammes interrupted a conversation between Gunn and Honky following a Gunn loss and asked Gunn to join him; one guitar shot later, the Gunn-Honky partnership was violently dissolved.
The newly formed Gunn-Jammes team could easily have languished on Shotgun, but luckily for them, they became the pet project of WWF head writer Vince Russo. Russo, known for his legendary ego, had a dream to take two wrestlers that had been deemed “unpushable” and make them the most over tag team of the ’90s. With Jammes’ charisma and Gunn’s impressive look and physique, Russo knew he had the perfect combination. Rechristen “The New Age Outlaws”, Gunn and Jammes were pushed hard and fast, stealing items from various teams and gaining cheap win after cheap win. Within weeks, they were the most hated team in the WWF while at the same time getting some cheers from fans who admired the team’s cool, cavalier attitude. Russo took a huge gamble and convinced Vince McMahon to give the Outlaws the Tag Team titles, even going so far as to let them upset the legendary Legion of Doom. With every week Gunn and Jammes were getting more and more heat, with fans cheering along to the catchphrases “Road Dogg” (as Jammes came to be known) came up with; the Outlaw experiment was working wonders.
As the winter of 1998 went on, The New Age Outlaws were getting huge pops both face and heel and a hot feud with Cactus Jack & Terry Funk only served to further that. Following Wrestlemania XIV, the WWF decided that their ultra hot Tag Team champions, along with the newly returned to the WWF X-Pac and up and comer Triple H (along with his Amazonian valet Chyna) were the perfect men to comprise the new Degeneration X, a group whose original incarnation was Shawn Michaels, HHH, and Chyna. The new DX meshed perfectly, creating hilarious skits involving “invading” WCW’s CNN Center and doing parodies of the Nation. Gradually, DX was getting bigger and bigger babyface pops until the WWF had no choice but to turn them full babyface.
The new DX was a cornerstone of the new “Attitude Era” WWF, with the Outlaws serving as two of the Federation’s most prominent superstars. Their Tag Team title reign continued, save for a brief interruption by Kane & Mankind in the summer of ’98, until December of ’98 when they dropped the belts to the team of Ken Shamrock & The Big Bossman, members of Vince McMahon’s new top heel stable The Corporation. The rationale was that the WWF felt Gunn was once again ready to be pushed as a singles star, this time as a babyface.
Gunn was pushed into a feud with IC champion Ken Shamrock that eventually became a three way feud also involving Val Venis that most assumed would end with Gunn as the new IC champ. However, it quickly became evident that most of the Outlaws’ heat came from Road Dogg’s mic work; Gunn was decent in the ring, but nothing special, and without Road Dogg he was lost. In a strange turn of events, Road Dogg was given the IC title, while Gunn was placed in the Hardcore division. Neither change would last long and soon the Outlaws would be back together as a team but not for long.
The decision was made that DX had run its course; the group would be broken up with HHH getting a main event heel push, X-Pac being put in a tag team with Kane, Road Dogg being pushed as a babyface and Gunn once again being pushed as a singles heel, using his nickname “Mr. Ass” as his new primary ring name. However, this time the push seemed more committed than previous attempts; Gunn was put over both Road Dogg and X-Pac and even won the 1999 King of the Ring tournament. In the initial stages of his push Gunn was clearly motivated, working some of the best, most intense matches of his career. The final step was to be a big time feud with the WWF’s number two babyface, The Rock, culminating in a big time match at Summerslam 1999 and Gunn dropped the ball. Getting cocky, assuming that his push was assured, he put on lazy matches in the weeks leading up to Summerslam and was rewarded by not only jobbing to The Rock, but by being forced to kiss the ass of an obese woman following the match. The push had failed once again.
Within weeks following Summerslam, Gunn found himself in a familiar place: teaming with Road Dogg. The team was given back the Tag Team titles and was immediately once again hugely over as babyfaces. In the final stages of his heel push Gunn put on a fantastic match with HHH on RAW, but it was too late. The Outlaws would not even remain babyfaces for very long as the decision was made to reform DX as a heel group to bolster new World champion HHH. The Outlaws held onto the Tag Team titles, but quickly became little more than HHH lackeys and their act was growing stale. Perhaps it was a setback, but perhaps it was luck when Gunn went down with a bicep injury in February of 2000. He would remain on the shelf for seven months.
Gunn returned in September of 2000 to save his longtime friend Chyna from Intercontinental champion Eddie Guererro, who had been engaged to Chyna but got caught cheating on her. Again the fans reacted tremendously to Gunn, and again he was pushed as a babyface. For the record, Gunn had now gone from face to heel and back five times since breaking away from Bart Gunn years before. Nonetheless, the WWF had faith. Gunn was repackaged as “The One” Billy Gunn, given new theme music and a new look, and the pops continued. Gunn was rewarded for the pops by finally being given the IC title.
Gunn’s title reign did not last long as though he was enthusiastic, he still lacked in-ring skills and was unable to put on good enough matches in a WWF that was far more packed with talent than the one he had left. By the start of 2001 he was off of pay per views and relegated to a secondary role in Chyna’s feud with the RTC. He was further de-pushed into the Hardcore division again, and was gradually taken off RAW and Smackdown, making more regular appearances on Jakked. Yet he still got huge pops every time he walked out the entrance. Recently on Sunday Night Heat, Gunn attacked babyface European champion Matt Hardy following a loss, turning heel once again.
What is wrong with Billy Gunn? How can he seemingly be so over with the fans, yet be de-pushed time and time again? What does he lack that is keeping him from reaching the next level? Let’s take a look
THE MARK: Mark fans love Billy Gunn, and have since his early DX days. He’s in tremendous physical condition and has a fantastic look. Gunn has also always exuded an aura of being “cool;” while Road Dogg was the guy who people listened to in the New Age Outlaws, Gunn was the guy chicks wanted and guys wanted to be like. He has always played the cool, cocky, good-looking rebel who knows full well he’s better than everybody else, and the fans eat it up. He lacks great mic skills, but given his physical gifts and look, what he has should be sufficient.
THE SMART: Smart fans hate Billy Gunn (for the most part), and have since he was first pushed as a singles wrestler. The complaints are always that the WWF shoves Gunn down the fans’ throat too much, too fast; Gunn has always been pushed either on the basis of his look or mark fan pops, two things smart fans do not hold in high regard. Furthermore, while he’s not the worst wrestler on the planet, Gunn is sloppy in the ring. And above all else, Gunn commits the smart fan’s cardinal sin of being unlazy and unmotivated. Over the years Gunn has grown cocky, getting one push after another, and never being able to stay motivated long enough to make them work. The constant heel-face turns have not helped either.
And finally
THE MEAN: “Nash could be seen as a man living what I would call “the modern American dream”: he has achieved maximum success with minimum effort. He has used what he’s got naturally (a good look and body) and tempered it with an important skill (political savvy) to cover up what he does not have (tremendous athletic skill).” That was from my first column on Kevin Nash. Billy Gunn is very similar to Kevin Nash, but with one fatal exception. Like Nash, Gunn has a good look, and a good body; he appeals to the mark fans because of this. Like Nash, Gunn does not possess tremendous in-ring skills, although he is considerably more athletic and thus more talented than Nash. Unlike Nash, Gunn is not adept at the game of backstage politics. I don’t know Billy Gunn the man, but I can make one of two assumptions: he is either not that bright, or a really nice guy. These are the only two explanations I can think of for why Gunn has not capitalized on his natural abilities like Nash and become a superstar. If Gunn learned to play the political game like Nash, then just like Nash he would be able to parlay the mark reaction and his physical gifts into a long term run as a main-eventer. But because he does not play the game like Nash, Gunn can not get away with being lazy, he can not cover up what he lacks, and he can not succeed like Nash has.
At this point I would like to believe that Billy Gunn has learned his lesson. After so many failed pushes and demotions, he has to have realized that this latest heel turn may be his last chance. He has to (excuse the pun) get off his ass and recognize that there is no room for laziness. He has a lot going for him, but he’s lacking just as much. If he’s not going to play the backstage game, then he’s got to do his work in the ring. Has Billy Gunn learned his lesson? Will he finally become a superstar?
In the mean time, thanks for reading
