Billy Gunn Thinks Young AEW Talent Could Do A Better Job Taking Advantage Of Veteran Minds
Billy Gunn is a WWE Hall of Famer and he has seen and done almost everything that could be done in the business.
Before making the move to AEW Gunn established himself as a featured talent in WWE, and during his time there he surely picked up pointers from those vets before him.
AEW has many legends of wrestling past within the company, including Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, Jerry Lynn, Dean Malenko, and Marc Henry just to name a few.
During an interview with Busted Open Radio, Gunn stated he believed that younger talent could do a better job of utilizing the minds of vets in the back.
I think they could do a better job of it . Honestly, that’s one of the things, we have some of the….Arn, Dean, Tully, Jerry, you have some of the greatest talent minds that are in the business and I feel they don’t take full advantage of it. I feel they need to take more advantage of it. Sometimes, I think they are in their own head and, not that they know it all, but they kind of don’t want someone to tell them different from what their game plan is. I feel like it needs to be more and that they don’t take full advantage of what they have in front of them.”
Gunn was then asked what he would change in regards to younger talent in-ring work. Gunn stated that he would want them to slow down during cetin situations.
“Back down on half of the stuff that they do. For me, that’s the biggest thing. There is a time and place to crack out all your stuff, but I feel they are so young and they don’t realize that their bodies are not going to be able to take this, so they literally go out there…it’s not that they’re working hard, they feel like if they don’t get to do all their stuff, they’re not working hard. That’s not the case. No to diminish the YouTube show, but if I’m with an extra and I have four minutes on our YouTube show, I don’t have to do a 450 and a Spanish Fly and everything in my arsenal every time I’m out there. I feel they don’t know how to go, ‘I want to do this and this, so let me workaround to get to this so I get the most out of that move.’ It’s just move after move after move after flip after dive and they don’t structure matches like how you would structure stuff around, ‘Hey, I want to do this one dive, but I’m going to do four dives before I get to that, but I want everyone to react to this one.’ They’re not going to. When you come inside the ring to outside the ring, that’s a dive whether you do a crappy dive or a jump dive, it doesn’t matter, you’re going from inside to outside. I wouldn’t mind seeing them back down a bit. Then, if you’re in the main event or you have a big spot with a signed talent, then you can do a little more, but they just go everything and their bodies are not going to hold up,They’re not letting the people getting emotionally invested in them and letting them absorb what their personalities are because it’s ‘go, go, go.’ The hardest thing for people to teach is ‘don’t do anything and get the most out of it,’ and selling appropriately. It’s just ‘go go go’ and the people never have time to catch up. They think that if the people are making noise, they are over. ‘I’m it, did you hear the people?’ They don’t know you, they’re just popping on the move stuff because they can’t do it. It’s just a reaction to something you’re doing and it’s forgotten about the next time someone walks out the tunnel. A lot of it is not letting people in to what their character is or who they are. The more they let people in to let people know who they are and get invested in them, the better off they are.”
It has been noted by AEW talent how much Billy Gunn is willing to give advice critique matches. We will see if talent takes this into consideration and utilize all the knowledge there is backstage.
H/T Fightful for transcripts.
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