Posted on 4/24/126 by Colin Vassallo
Billy Gunn sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis,
Indiana 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!
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. 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.”
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.”
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 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.”