All Elite Wrestling is trying to create the new catchphrase of “Where The Best Wrestle” but unfortunately they seem to forget that Billy Gunn wrestles for AEW.
Billy Gunn is 60 years old. Billy Gunn has never been a singles World Champion. Billy Gunn’s only experiences as a draw have been when attached to more popular wrestlers in a faction. Back in 2001, Billy Gunn was already being mocked for doing nothing with his pro wrestling career.
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Yet here we are, in 2024, and not only is Billy Gunn still wrestling? Billy Gunn is a champion. And Billy Gunn just wrestled in 11 of the worst minutes you will probably see this year in All Elite Wrestling because for some reason he has to be protected and look strong against Jay White.
Let me first say that absolutely Billy Gunn still looks great in 2024. He looks great for the same reason he was fired by World Wrestling Entertainment, but looks great nonetheless. He is also part of a popular faction in AEW with The Acclaimed where fans love to hear the words “Daddy Ass” because it’s funny to say Daddy Ass. That’s the thing. It’s a joke. His name is a joke. That’s where all of his popularity today derives from.
When he was “managing” his sons in The Gunns a few years back in AEW nobody cared. When he was working New Japan Pro Wrestling he somehow had one of the worst matches of Hiroshi Tanahashi’s career. He was atrocious in his return with the New Age Outlaws in WWE in the mid 2010s. In TNA he’s best known for wearing blackface than anything in the ring because most of his matches were terrible. His first pay per view match with Kevin Nash is forgotten by most today but was one of the worst matches in the company up to that point. At one point his only positive contribution to TNA was being the valet of The Beautiful People.
Prior to that he had to be in a “ha ha gay but not gay” tag team of Billy and Chuck, better remembered for Eric Bischoff pretending to be a minister and peeling his face off to tell 3 Minute Warning to ruin the sham gay wedding. And prior to that, as I already showed you, his singles run in the World Wrestling Federation went so poorly he was being mocked as a terrible choice to win the King of the Ring.
So last night’s AEW Dynamite, in 2024, began with the same guy who mocked Billy Gunn in 2001 trying to rally the troops so to speak on how great All Elite Wrestling is. It’s not the point of what I’m writing but you should never play defence in a pro wrestling war. You never have to publicly defend yourself. That’s what the fans are for. I wonder if that was more for the locker room after several wrestlers were released from their contracts prematurely, something that only happens in AEW when it’s a mutual agreement (or someone is fired.)
“I looked at the roster and I saw a murderer’s row of talent,” said Adam Copeland in opening up the show. “I have been in some of the most phenomenal locker rooms of all time and I will put that locker room up against anybody.”
Copeland isn’t wrong. But it’s one thing to have a murderer’s row and another thing to use them properly. And having 60 year old never been a singles star some of the most mediocre matches in the past 30 years Billy Gunn beating one of the best wrestlers in that murderer’s row of a locker room in Jay White spits in the face of everything All Elite Wrestling has been trying to accomplish since 2019.
Copeland may not have named Jay White when listing the people he could have first time matches with, but Jay is absolutely one of the best wrestlers on the AEW roster. He’s also a former New Japan Pro Wrestling IWGP Heavyweight champion and IWGP World Heavyweight champion. He’s spent time as a singles star, just not in AEW. He’s currently an ROH Six Man Champion. But even so, AEW had him face Darby Allin a few weeks ago to remind people how great he still is as a singles wrestler.
While the storyline is clearly building to an AEW Trios Champions versus ROH Six Man Champions match at AEW Dynasty, and the story last week was Jay White entering Billy Gunn’s home and being an asshole, this wasn’t the time for Billy Gunn to essentially little guy Jay White into oblivion. As a matter fact, there is never a time. Jay White could have burned Billy Gunn’s house down and that still isn’t the story to tell.
Billy Gunn should never, ever be getting the better of Jay White in 2024. I don’t care if Billy Gunn took his name serious and had a gun and shot Jay. Jay White should still be outwrestling him while bleeding to death.
The start of their match made sense with Billy attacking Jay White from behind. But once the bell rang and they got into the ring Jay White should have taken over. He’s faster than Billy. He’s smarter than Billy. He’s in his prime. He should have chopped down Gunn and decimated him on the mat. Instead we saw Jay White get his ass kicked by a senior citizen with high testosterone levels through a commercial break and spread across two quarters of television.
Some may say, well hey, Sting barely sold offence against younger guys and was treated as unbeatable all the way up to his retirement. Yeah, that’s Sting. STING. When Billy Gunn was a rookie in the wrestling industry in World Championship Wrestling he was working as a jobber against Sting. Sting was already a star. Sting has been a star his entire career. Billy Gunn has failed every time he’s been given spotlight and now gets one overshadowing his sons and overshadowing The Acclaimed.
The match ended with Billy Gunn winning the match by disqualification, because not only does he have to be on the offensive for the majority of the 11 minutes but he also can’t have a loss to his name. This was the time for Bullet Club Gold to get heat. Jay White should have destroyed Billy Gunn while The Acclaimed could do nothing because they agreed to stay in the back. This should have been their wakeup call that they left Daddy Ass to be slaughtered by a sadistic wrestling Switchblade.
But nah. In 2024, AEW has to keep Billy Gunn looking strong.
Back in 2021, QT Marshall was able to beat Billy Gunn in five minutes on Dynamite. In 2024, Jay White gets his ass kicked and loses the match? What is going on? Make it make sense! Why is he winning singles matches even by DQ? Why isn’t Anthony Bowens, who is the best member of The Acclaimed by far in ring and on microphone, having to take a backseat in support of this rusted dumbell?
This was a terrible use of Jay White, a waste of Jay White’s talents, and was basically telling the locker room that it doesn’t matter how good you were in New Japan Pro Wrestling or All Elite Wrestling or anywhere else, you will never be as important to them as Billy Gunn. Ol’ Daddy Ass is the star not you. Don’t like it? Go make friends with Triple H and get fired. Maybe then AEW will treat you like you are not just on the level, but better than Billy Gunn, in 2024.
AEW released 10 wrestlers this past week. If AEW is where the best wrestle, one of those should have been Billy Gunn because he isn’t one of the best at anything when it comes to pro wrestling. He can barely take a bump. He was incapable of being carried by one of the greatest wrestlers of all time back in 2017, why is he still in All Elite Wrestling in 2024 beating Jay White?
And I’m sure someone will try to shame me for saying someone should lose their job but let’s be serious. Billy Gunn wouldn’t spend much time on the unemployment line. The WWE doesn’t care about their trainers having elevated testosterone levels anymore (and looking at AJ Styles they don’t care about their wrestlers having them either) and he’d absolutely be welcomed back into the fold. He’d get a WWE Hall of Fame induction in the New Age Outlaws at some point as well. He won’t be hurting for work. He serves absolutely no purpose in AEW other than to make people ask, “Why is Billy Gunn there?”
So long as Billy Gunn is in All Elite Wrestling they cannot say they are Where The Best Wrestle. They are merely Where The Best Have To Wait For Billy Gunn To Retire.
Photo by All Elite Wrestling
