Billy Gunn made an appearance on Busted Open Radio to discuss a wide range of topics. Here are the highlights:
The main advice he would give to talent:
“Back down on half of the stuff that they do. That for me is the biggest thing. There’s a time and a place to crack out all your stuff, but I feel that they’re so young, and they don’t realize that their bodies are not going to be able to take this. It’s not that they’re not working hard. They feel like if they don’t get to do all their stuff, they’re not working hard, and that’s not the case. I’m not trying 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, a Spanish Fly, and everything in my arsenal every single time I’m out there. I feel they don’t know how to go, ‘Okay, I want to do this and this, so let me work around to get to this so I get the most out of that move. But it’s just move after move after move after flip after dive, and they don’t structure matches. Like that would be psychological 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 everybody to react to this one. Well, they’re not going to. They don’t realize when you come from inside the ring to outside the ring, that’s a dive. Whether you do a crappy dive, a jump dive, or just fly out, it doesn’t matter. You’re going from inside to outside. So I wouldn’t mind seeing them back down just a little bit. Then if you’re in a main event, or you have a big spot with a signed talent, then you can do just a little bit more, but they just do everything, and their bodies just are not going to hold up.”
Why some talent are not getting over:
“I think one of the things is they’re not letting the people get emotionally invested in them and letting them absorb what they’re what their personalities are because they just go, go, go. The hardest thing for people to teach is to, okay, don’t do anything and get the most out of it, and then sell it appropriately. It’s like they just go, go, go, and the people never have time to catch up. I think that they think just because the people are making noise that they’re over. That’s it. Did you hear the people? Yeah, 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 somebody walks out the tunnel. So I think a lot of it is not letting people into what their character or who they are, because the more they let people in to let them know who they are and get invested in them, the better off they are.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription