They could have been a contendor #1

[Guest the_Staunton]

They Could Have been a contendor

#1 - Billy Gunn

 

It's February 2000. The fans are emotionally watching the farewell of Cactus Jack, beaten in a bloody Hell In a Cell match that sends him into storyline retirement. Meanwhile Stephanie McMahon stands triumphant with her husband...Billy Gunn.

 

Weird alternate universe? Well it could have happened. There are singles pushes and then there was the Billy Gunn push of 99. Tell me that Billy Gunn sucks and you might have a point. Tell me Billy Gunn messed up his singles push in 1999 and I have to scream. How could anyone cope with the misbooking and bad ideas that were served up to Gunn. To recap, the WWF was short of top line heels in 1999. The Greater Power angle merely prolonged the Austin v McMahon feud a little longer than necessary. No one needed to see Austin fight with the Undertaker again and the other obvious candidates were out for differing reasons. The Rock was being saved for Wrestlemania, Kane had been done, The Big Show couldn't stop eating and Mick Foley was contemplating retirement. That left three immediate options: Jeff Jarrett and two freshly turned ex D-X heels: Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Billy Gunn. Austin and WWF management had a certain reluctance to work with any of them but the WWF had to try. Triple H became the Game and Billy Gunn became Mr Ass...and that's where the problems started.

 

Billy Gunn took a long time to catch a break in his career. He was a Smoking Gunn and a Rockabilly (don't ask) before the explosion of the New Age Outlaws. Even here his first singles push went strange when Vince Russo decided Billy Gunn should be hardcore and the Road Dogg should get the IC title when the booking should have been, logically, the other way around, but Billy was still poised for his singles push.

 

Billy turned heel when he beat up X-Pac on the Raw episode of May 3. He went in to a short feud with the Road Dogg that culminated in a match at Over The Edge, a match that for obvious reasons no one remembers. So Billy was bad (no jokes please) and set for a feud with the Rock. So far so good. He was also to annointed the King Of The Ring. However it was on Billys big night that things began to fall apart. The booking for the 1999 King Of The Ring was appalling. Billy rolled over two injured opponents and wasn't allowed to cleanly beat his only healthy opponent, Kane. In short it was a booking catastrophe. Every bout (not just BGs) was ridiculously plotted and rushed and Billy didn't get any kind of celebration. Instead he just walked from the ring slowly. Can anyone really see how a win over Ken Shamrock (with internal injuries), Kane (not cleantly) and X-Pac (neck injury) could help anyone? They didn't even give him a match with Road Dogg in the final (that wouldn't have been a SWERVE!). In short, there was no hope that this could help BG get over...but worse was to come...far worse.

 

Mick Foley once said that as soon as someone walks down the aisle with that name Chilly McFreeze then they would never get over and their career was in jeopardy. Similarly could anyone really succeed as a heel with the theme song "I'm an Ass Man?" As Triple H got serious, Billy was just getting stupid. He talked about his ass. A lot. He also came to the ring with a song that talked about asses. A lot. Billy Gunn got a rash on his ass. He tried, he really did...but could anyone really truly cope with this booking? They pushed Triple H as a serious athlete chasing a dream...Billy Gunn was talking about asses?

 

Goldberg once said main eventers don't do comedy. He kind of had a point. Triple H may have struggled in his first few months of heeldom but at least he was focused on the title. Billy Gunn was focused on making the Rock kiss his ass. So we get to Summerslam and the infamous kiss my ass match. Billy brought a fat woman with a hole in her tights to the ring. He kissed her ass. The Rock beat him. Clean. The Rock said he was like the Brooklyn Brawler. It's pretty easy to say that, and yes the Rock did try to work in the program, but it didn't help anyone. By the end of September Billy was back in the tag team ranks...with Road Dogg.

 

It's very easy to sneer at Billy Gunn. Let's deal with things one at a time. Yes, Billy Gunn has limitations, but in 1999 it was presumed Triple H had limitations. Triple H was treated as a serious athlete. Billy Gunn wasn't. Did Triple H want it more? Undisputably, but to say Billy Gunn failed is only half the story. The booking failed as well. No one could have coped with it. No one could have succeeded with the plans Vince Russo had for Billy Gunn. No one could have won with that music, that gimmick, those angles. It just couldn't happen. If the WWF had got serious maybe BG would still have failed, but we'll never know...and the spine chilling thought of Billy retiring Mick Foley remains just a thought...

[Guest Inferno42058]

My all-time "Coulda-been" has always been Mr. Perfect. Why, oh why wasn't he ever WWF Champ? I guess I can blame Hogan for that one. But hey, he's still got the skills. And you know what they say: it's never too late......

[Guest teke184]

Billy blew his first chance at success as a singles wrestler when he got rip-roaring drunk shortly before Royal Rumble 1999.  He had been expected to go over Shamrock before that, but the booking was changed after he screwed up.  

 

Russo can be blamed for screwing with his career around WM 15, but Billy already did some damage himself at least two months before that.

[Guest nWoScorpion]

Perfect wasnt held down. It as just ho it worked out. He was IC Champion for most of 1990-1991, then retired. He came back in a mid-card position again, nd left shortly after. Noticed how he dosnt bump like hell anymore?

[Guest Some Guy]

Hogan refused to put Perfect over, so he was held down.  The back injury would have ended his career for a while anyways, but he was held down.

 

the_Staunton, I liked the rant, but I disagree with you about the main reason Billy didn't get it done, you said his gimmick and the booking were the main reasons, I say his poor ring work was the bigger reason.  The booking and "Mr. Ass" gimmick hurt him as well but the guy just can't work well.  After he came back from his injury he had poor matches with 2 of the best workers in the company at the time, Benoit and HHH.  That's pretty sad IMO, if he couldn't have a good match with those 2 guys a that time.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

The biggest crime against Perfect was in 1993.  He was the most over face in the promotion following his face turn, and they never really did anything with it.  He probably should have won the Royal Rumble, and there is no way he should have jobbed to Michaels at Summerslam.

[Guest teke184]

Prefect's back was fucked again by mid-93, which is why his match against HBK sucked and why he retired again before Survivor Series 1993.  (His Lloyds of London policy didn't hurt his decision to retire, either)  

 

Therefore, the WWF's decision to turn him into a JTTS after defeating Flair on RAW can be defended by saying he wasn't a long-term option for anything due to his pre-existing injuries.

[Guest nWoScorpion]

Hogan only screwe dPerfect of the 1990 RR< which didnt mean squat until the 1993 and on ones. Perfect first started to show main event status when Warrior was champ, and if it wasnt for the Slaughter angle, I think he woulda been champ. So I dont see how Hogan screwed him over. 1993, Perfect was too injured and their was no hogan. I guess its still his fault.

[Guest teke184]

Perfect was prevented from working a program with Warrior in late 1990 because he was believed to be "ratings poison", which the WWF justified by a lower-than-average rating for his match against Hogan on Saturday Night's Main Event (late 89-early 90?).  I'd say the ratings slip was bad timing more than anything else, as Hulkamania was starting to wear out its welcome and the wrestling boom that started in 1985 was slowly going bust.

 

 

In the case of the possible Warrior feud, it's not like the WWF would have been any worse off with any of their OTHER top-level heels mid-90 through early 91, as Rick Rude had been an afterthought since his IC title loss to Warrior in late 89, Earthquake was being positioned for a feud with Hogan at Summerslam 90, and the WWF didn't see anymore potential for Savage or Dibiase to have a run at the top.  

 

In fairness to the WWF, Dibiase was stale and Savage's character had gone off the deep end shortly after his WM 5 loss to Hogan, so he had NO credibility left until he and Warrior pulled a five-star match out of their asses at WM 7 that revived the careers of BOTH Warrior and Savage.

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

Here's a could have been for you...Rick fucking Rude!

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

As Triple H got serious, Billy was just getting stupid. He talked about his ass. A lot. He also came to the ring with a song that talked about asses. A lot. Billy Gunn got a rash on his ass. He tried, he really did...but could anyone really truly cope with this booking? They pushed Triple H as a serious athlete chasing a dream...Billy Gunn was talking about asses?

This was the main problem, I think. Imagine trying to turn Val Venis into a monster heel...... Uhhhh, no.

 

Interesting write-up from the perspective of Gunn's career. I always saw the KMA match from the other direction. As a Rocky fan at the time, it was depressing (although admittedly expected) to see him job at WM by Austin, but then it seemed pointless for him to get cleanly pinned again by SCSA only a month later. Then he got kicked out of Team Corporate (probably to spare him from being pushed down in the Corp Ministry), jobbed to the likes of the Undertaker, and hit rock bottom (no pun intended, honestly) with that Kiss My Ass match. A guy who was once such a heel that he was wearing Steve Austin's championship belt and taunting him with it is fighting "Mister Ass" in an ass-themed gimmick match.

 

IIRC, even WWF.com had a columnist who commented that it seemed like any day now Rocky would appear on Heat as a Jobber.

 

Billy's push did nothing for the people he was with either, it seems.