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Billy Gunn (@realbillygunn) is a professional wrestler with AEW and a WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to discuss still being in amazing shape at 62 years old, if he wants one more singles title run, if he plans to wrestle into his 70s, working with his kids Austin and Colten, if DX was a greater faction than the nWo, his hidden gem match with Brock Lesnar on SmackDown, his friendship with Mike O’Hearn, who was the best person he has been in the ring with, and more!
You don’t just look like you’re in great shape at 62, you’re in great shape, period.
“So here comes my Titan Medical plug. Everybody’s going to take this the wrong way, and it’s what it is. Everybody has their opinion. But you need help in longevity, help in health, help in nutrition, help in your fitness. And I have all that. Titan Medical is one of the leading peptide companies in Tampa that has just made me an ambassador, whatever, a sponsored athlete. So it’s not Mike [O’Hearn’s] company. Mike is also a me, Mike did it first and then I jumped on board. When you work or do what I do at a level that I do. Am I a WrestleMania five-star guy? No, I’m not anymore, and I know that, and I’ve never once said that I was, but there’s still a part of me that loves to do this. It’s not for egotistical things, it’s not for any of that. It’s because I genuinely love what I do, and I work for 1FW, which is QT Marshall’s company. It’s a Georgia company. We just had a huge show in Rome that was awesome, little Arn Anderson thing, because that’s where he’s from. I will break it here. I was in a cage, not for long, but I was in there and I touched it. But yeah, Titan Medical is one of the leading people in helping you be that way, getting you through those injuries, make you feel better. I’m not going to go on a peptide thing here, but they’re naturally found in your body anyway. As we get older, we’re just kind of losing that so we kick it back in gear for longevity, health, hair, whatever you need it for.”
It’s not just that you look good. You have agility still in the ring, like you really haven’t lost a step.
“Well, to me, I’ve lost a step, but I appreciate that. I fake it very well. I think it was, like a few months ago, I was like, getting too heavy, because I was really eating and trying to put on size for some ungodly reason.”
What do you weigh now?
“260. 260 for me right now is really good. I could be 255 and be okay. But anything over that I start getting like, I feel it. I know the minute I start gaining weight, because I can instantly feel it, and I know what I can do and what my body feels like. But yeah, 260 is good. I was doing something. I would run, I was leaving my feet behind me, and it was driving me absolutely batty. I was like okay, this isn’t a thing. So now I’m in class running spots and stuff with every one of the students trying to figure because they all move differently. So I’m trying to figure it out, and just going, Okay, you’re too heavy and you’re just being sluggish and you’re being lazy. So I dropped some weight, and now I feel amazing.”
Do you want to wrestle into your 70s?
“I don’t. So I want to do it while I still can, and while I’m still having fun. I mean, you can ask my wife, she hates watching me, because I’m just such a goof. I’m such a goof because I just don’t have any stress anymore. There’s no stress for me to go out there and have everybody go, Oh, watch, it’s going to be an unbelievable wrestling match. They’re going to go, we’re about to have so much fun and be interactive in what we do, because that’s what he does, you know. So that’s what I’m doing. Do I want to? No, I don’t want to work until I’m 70. But is it possible? Sure, anything’s possible. But I’m getting to the point where I’m kind of slowing down a little. I think it’s because the gym is taking over my life.”
What does training look like specifically?
So my training now is I just stopped my six-day split. I went back to the five days so I could have two days off. About two weeks ago, I had to take a week off. But for me to take a week off, the gym has to happen here first, because I was playing catch-up with my body, I was really aching and I was hurting. But I said every morning I just go to the gym and it’ll go away. Sure, it goes away, but it comes right back, because I’m one. I’m not recovering as fast. So I have to put the brakes on that and realize, hey, I’m just spinning my wheels. I just need to take a week off. But that takes a couple of days of mental preparation, and my wife telling me, and then I’m going go to her and go, Hey, I’m going to take a week off.
Do you want another run at a singles title?
“No, I’m not a singles guy, I know that, and I’ve always known that. Plus, I really don’t have the air for that anymore, just being older and stuff. I guess it’s because I don’t really put an effort into that, because it’s not something I want to do. I feed better off of more chaos, and I can work better like that than I can working on my own. Can I direct a little better? Yeah, I can direct a little bit, but I can also direct in tags or trios or whatever that looks like as well. I’ve always been a tag guy, because I love the structure of how to get all these pieces together and put it together so it makes something good. Yeah, singles negative.”
What do you think of this discussion that goes on in wrestling so often of what was the better all time? Faction, DX, or the nWo?
“It’s people’s opinion, and you can have one of those, right? Of course, I say DX is number one. Kevin [Nash] is going to say nWo. They were both super impactful that literally, I don’t think, even as today, there’s not one wrestling person that doesn’t know what each one of those are. Because it was so impactful and it was so good. I know the only thing that hurt the nWo is it was so good, and then everybody jumped on. Where DX was so good, and you couldn’t get on board with, I don’t care if you had a golden ticket from Willy Wonka, you weren’t getting on that ride.”
What’s the career highlight for you? You’ve done it all, like you said. But what’s the one moment that you’re most proud of?
“Working with my kids. Above anything, and above all, is being able to work with my kids. I get all weird when I talk, because it was so good, and it was so, I don’t know, I can’t explain it, because you’re a parent, right? Every time they do something, it’s like, that’s the most amazing thing. Then they do something else, and you go, that’s the most amazing thing. My kids were awesome. They really were just amazing kids. Great in school, go to school, go to college, do all that stuff. But then, when Austin did it, it was one thing, and then Colton doing it, and then being able to be in the ring and work next to them while I yell at them when they’re working, and them going, Dad, stop it! There’s nothing that tops that. There really isn’t. I wish there was, but it ain’t getting better than that.”
Who was the best person you’ve ever been in the ring with?
“Although Eddie probably was one of them, because even though our stuff that we did wasn’t long, him, Chris Benoit, I know that’s a no, but it’s just a fact, the intensity that he was was amazing to work with. Of course, The Headshrinkers, because they had to take us for the first year. The patience and the way that they taught us, and they never got frustrated. They just knew. The cool thing was they knew what their job was, to help new guys, and they did an awesome job. I like to say that everybody that I’ve been in the ring with is good in one way or another, because I hate picking out just one thing, because that would mean that I kind of feel like I diminish everybody else that I’ve been in there with. But the most significant, of course, would be Ron and Don Harris, because they’re the ones that got me started. Then it would have to be The Headshrinkers, because they had to teach us. And they literally taught us everything that they knew in a year, you know, that made us kind of start understanding what we were doing and understanding where we had to go, and how to put stuff together and psychology and stuff, because they were stuck with us. So that would be the most significant part of my wrestling career.”
I don’t know if you know this or not, but WWE Vault just uploaded one of your matches from February 26, 2004. It was a SmackDown match with Brock Lesnar. Do you remember that?
“So I do a little bit, and somebody sent it to me, and it’s not bad. It’s pretty good. The people don’t realize is that if he likes you, he would work with you, and me and him always got along. He is awesome. I’ve worked him a couple of times, I think that was one of the only times I really worked him on TV. But we would do some house shows together, and he was amazing. He really was and he was good because he was one that would never take over either. It was kind of like he let me kind of put some stuff together, then we kind of just kind of went where he wanted to go. That’s how stuff happens. When lead guys, and I’m talking like the most experienced one of the one that thinks he’s got to control everything and call everything and not listen, is not how you have good things. It’s okay, this is the direction we’re going. It’s not working. If you have something, give it to me, let’s go. I’m super open to go there. What’s the worst? It doesn’t work either. We just go another direction. That’s the working part of what we do.”
What do you think is the biggest difference you’ve seen in the business now versus, say, 30 years ago?
“Oh God, this is where I get laced. I feel it’s all about moves now. I feel it’s just moves. It’s just, you want to learn how to wrestle? Okay. I’m going to show you a bunch of moves. Okay, we have a show tonight. You want to go work it? Sure. What are you going to do? You’re going to do everything I taught you. There’s no structure to it. There’s no sense to it. There’s nothing you’re just doing all the moves that I taught you how to do in however long we have. So the problem is the people won’t know any different, other than it’s the first time that they see you. But you’re diving out of the ring, you’re landing on your head. You’re getting slammed on the apron for some ungodly reason, which seems to be a thing these days. If they took their time and did them in the middle of the ring where they’re supposed to, they get the same reaction if you do it right as they do when you get slammed on the hardest part of the ring, because now it’s cool to be killed halfway through your match. But it’s just moves now to where back then it was, yeah, there was no moves, because everything was structured so good, and the storylines were so good, that it’s where the people are at. Oh, The Rock comes out, or let’s say, Stone Cold comes out, and the place goes absolutely ballistic, right? How do you get them out of the ceiling? Oh, you punch him right in his mouth and get him down. Get him to where the people don’t want him. Is he going to get there? No. Does he know that? Yes, because Steve’s probably not a good one, because he’s just such a butt-beater upper. I don’t want to cuss on your show. So let’s go with The Rock. I’ve worked him a couple times in singles. To get the people out of the ceiling to so we can go somewhere to where you get a reaction. He’s already got a reaction, because they’re already doing all the stuff. So you punch him in the mouth, right? You put him on the sell. Now the people are down here because they’re going, Oh, now it’s come on. They’re just waiting. And the minute you spin him around, and he pops me, and I flop around like that. The people lose their minds. So now we’ve done really nothing, but got a monster reaction, because we’re just playing with the people. We’re just taking them where I want to take them. If we’re here, how much higher can they go? Nowhere. So they have to come here so I can get them back to here, so I just feel that it’s just a bunch of wrestling moves now.”
So what’s a match that you would point to and go, this is my kind of match?
“So I thought Brody King and Kyle Fletcher on our show did a great job. Brody took him out of all his stuff. Those two, Kyle and Takeshita, so is Will [Ospreay]. But I think Will, he knows so much that you can’t rope him in. But the last one that I saw that was really good like that was Brody and Kyle. Because Brody literally took everything away from Kyle every time he tried to do something, he jerked it out from under him, and never gave it to him. Then at the right moment, he let Kyle could start doing his stuff, and it was amazing of what the reaction and how that match felt do it, because I literally couldn’t stop watching it. It was that good.”
What is Billy Gunn grateful for?
“My wife, my kids and my job.”
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