I suppose I could write an entire column on the various attempts by WWE to package Billy Gunn into something that fans would accept as a top star, but then we’d be here for months.
Although the New Age Outlaws worked spectacularly well as far as making him into a marketable star, most of the other attempts to turn him into a singles act did not.
“The One” Billy Gunn? More like “The Zero”.
“King” Billy Gunn? So bad that Edge scored an epic burn by pointing out that he hoped not to “Billy Gunn” the King of the Ring title when he won it in 2001. Yes, Billy Gunn had become so lame that his name was now a verb. And don’t even get me started on “Mr. Ass” and his theme song.
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See what I mean?
But the worst will always remain the first attempt to push him as a singles star. In 1996, the Smoking Gunns went through a bad breakup thanks to jealousy and bad feelings over manager Sunny maybe being in love with Billy or vice versa. They were never really clear on their relationship.
Anyway, Billy and Bart had an acrimonious split after failing to regain the tag team titles, and then faced each other on “Monday Night Raw” in a match that was an early example of the “Attitude Era” direction. The match ended abruptly with Billy supposedly suffering a neck injury at the hands of his “brother." He returned a few weeks later with the entire thing forgotten about, of course.
Meanwhile, in what was supposed to be an unrelated plot point, Honky Tonk Man returned to the WWF as a manager, looking for a new protégé to mold into the (second) greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time. To say this story went nowhere was being generous, as Honky came out week after week to do commentary and scout talent, taking nearly six months with no advancement of the plot and seemingly no payoff.
Finally, shortly after WrestleMania 13, we got some progress: Honky got into a confrontation with singing doofus “Double J” Jesse Jammes, offering him the, ahem, prestigious position and getting turned down cold. So the next week he regrouped and offered the spot to Billy Gunn, who was equally aimless as Jammes, but Gunn also turned him down and knocked him out to prove his point.
Jammes turned him down one last time and beat Honky up, and Honky vowed to debut his new guy at the Revenge of the Taker PPV in April and get his revenge on Jammes.
Now, in reality this new Honky protégé was intended to be WCW goofball Glen “Disco Inferno” Gilberti, on the outs with the company after a dispute over losing to female wrestler Jacqueline. However, despite Glen’s apparent promises to friends in the business that he’d be there, his WCW contract didn’t actually allow him to appear on WWF TV in time to make the gig happen. So even though it would be a pretty lame payoff, the actually payoff we got instead was somehow even worse.
KEITH: Gimmicks that were intended for someone else entirely
Indeed, Honky Tonk Man introduced his new charge as “Rockabilly” Gunn, complete with terrible Stray Cats ripoff music and goofy dancing. Supposedly the attack from Gunn on Honky was just a ruse, and in fact they were working together all along. Or whatever, it was stupid.
Not only that, but Rockabilly immediately started losing all his matches — including his debut. He was clearly at the level of a TV jobber, unable to draw heat without hitting guys with Honky’s guitar. He couldn’t even play his guitar! Turns out that giving a guy a '50s-inspired greaser gimmick and expecting him to get over as a star wasn’t such a hot idea.
By August, Gunn was losing on TV every week and spiraling down the toilet, until finally he was teamed up with fellow loser Jesse Jammes in a last-ditch effort to let them try to get over.
That effort came from a real place, and together they became the New Age Outlaws. So yeah, that worked out a little bit better, at least.
