Billy Gunn Critiques Modern Wrestling – WWE Hall of Famer and current All Elite Wrestling coach Billy Gunn shared a strong critique of today’s professional wrestling during a recent appearance on the All Real Wrestling Podcast. Gunn focused on what he believes is an overreliance on risky maneuvers by younger wrestlers, often at the cost of storytelling, psychology, and audience connection.
Gunn said many modern performers focus more on how many moves they can fit into a match rather than why those moves matter. He pointed to the repetition of similar high-risk spots, especially on the ring apron, as a major issue. “I don’t teach any of that crazy stuff, because it doesn’t get you anywhere. I have a million people that could do the same thing, and they all want to do it. So what is it different than you doing a Spanish Fly and him doing a Spanish Fly?” Gunn said.
He described the current in-ring style as excessive and dangerous without purpose. “It’s just a non-stop festival of how many big moves I can do, and try to kill myself, or fall on my head, or get dumped on my head… and on the apron stuff. It’s insane to me. I don’t get it. Because in their minds, it’s not the same thing. When you hit the side of the apron, it’s doing the same move in the ring. It’s the exact same move. Nobody out there knows that the ring apron is harder than the inside. The whole thing’s hard. So what is the difference? But for some reason, they think they have to take it to that extreme”.
According to Gunn, this mindset has led to a loss of logical storytelling inside matches. He explained that many wrestlers rush through sequences without building anticipation or emotion. “There’s no storytelling with it. It’s like a start off… ‘go outside, you wait out there. I’m going to G up the crowd and make them cheer for me for some reason, because they’re here to see me, but I’m going to make them cheer… so I’ll do a move for them.’ That’s insane to me. And then they just run and jump. And I’m standing here like this… there’s no effort or no work put into it,” Gunn said.
He added that the skill of working a crowd is fading. “Nowadays, nobody knows how to work like the crowd… No, they don’t. They don’t know how to work in general… Working is like, yes, we get it back in the 80s isn’t going to work now. But why? Because they’ve taken it so far to the extreme that you have to have very good, basic, stellar storytelling for me to follow along”.
Gunn stressed that conflict is essential to drawing fans into a match. “Nobody wants to see me and you wrestle because nobody understands wrestle because there’s no conflict. There’s no conflict between me and you wrestle other than… people that wrestle and think that they’re going to mark out for you. Because one, they know the moves that you’re doing. The people do not. They know some of them, but they don’t know all the setup to everything,” he explained.
He offered a simple example of effective motivation. “The only conflict we need is, hey, how about this? We were walking down the street and you happen to slap my wife on the butt… So now there’s a little bit of… tension there. So now I want to see Billy beat you up for touching his wife… There has to be a reason for me to fight. There has to be a reason for somebody to like me and hate you”.
Gunn also warned about audience desensitization. “We’ve just gone from the dial at 50 to 100… and we just are not… it’s just not made for everybody. I can only see a car crash a couple times before I go, ‘Yeah, I already saw it.’ We get desensitized to a car crash that’s insane, especially if it’s a big car… and everything’s going all over the place. But once you’ve seen it a couple times… you just go, ‘Yeah’”.
When discussing his coaching role, Gunn admitted his honesty is not always welcomed. “When I coach them, the upper echelon, or try to interact, if they ask… it’s always a feeling of that I’m trying to keep them from doing their stuff. In a sense, they don’t… maybe they don’t, maybe they do. I don’t know, because I don’t ask. They ask me. I tell them everything, and I’m always brutally honest about what I say, because I don’t say stuff just to pat you on the back. If it ain’t good, don’t ask me, because I’m telling you it’s not good. Because it does me no good as a coach to encourage the stuff that you’re doing that’s not any good”.
Gunn said his goal is improvement, not restriction. “You can get good if I tell you that it’s not good, and how to fix it, and then you can fix it. So all these guys doing all these jobs and all this other stuff, sure, there’s a place for it. But let’s kind of work to get to it instead of right when we start, just start doing it all, because then there’s no… because the people, they’re so athletic that the people cannot follow along”.
Billy Gunn Critiques Modern Wrestling
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