Billy Gunn Thinks Young AEW Talent Could Do A Better Job At Taking Advantage Of Veteran Minds
Billy Gunn is one of many respected veteran talents among young stars in the AEW locker room.
Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, Jerry Lynn, and Dean Malenko are among the agent in AEW while active veterans include Sting, Chris Jericho, and Christian Cage.
For Billy Gunn, he would like to see the young talent take more advantage of the guys who they share the backstage area with.
“I think they could do a better job of it,” said Gunn on Busted Open Radio when asked about young talent utilizing veteran minds. “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.”
When asked what Gunn would change in regards to the young talent and they way they work, he said he wants them to slow down in certain 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,” he said.
Gunn continued by saying, “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.”
Wardlow previously mentioned that Gunn is always waiting backstage to give him advice after matches. You can find Wardlow’s comments by clicking here.
Gunn watched his sons Austin & Colten fail to gain the AEW Tag Team Championships on AEW Rampage as they lost to Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy. If you missed anything from AEW Rampage, check out Fightful’s full report on the show by clicking here.
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