Billy Gunn thinks wrestlers today could do a much better job handling their problems backstage. While talking about the drama surrounding CM Punk’s time in AEW, Gunn compared it to his WWE days and basically said you don’t have to like somebody to get in the ring and do business with them.
Speaking to Inside The Ropes, Gunn said Vince McMahon was pretty good at keeping backstage issues under control. There were obviously people who didn’t get along, but Gunn remembers most wrestlers being able to put that aside when it was time to work.
“They do, but nothing like that. Like, Vince had things under control really good. Like, there’s this couple — like, we all — like, I don’t have to like you to wrestle with you or to work with you. I don’t have to like you. I don’t have to do anything. I just have to do business. And mostly, 99.9% of the guys always did that, right?”
Of course, there were still times when things got personal. Gunn said the difference was that those problems weren’t supposed to become everybody else’s problem too. If two wrestlers had serious heat, Gunn said they would be pulled into a room, the door would be shut and they’d deal with it privately. That’s also how Gunn says he handles things as a coach when he’s angry about something a wrestler has done.
“There’ll be that every speck now and then where you just pull them into a room, you know? You pull them into a room, you shut the door. So, you don’t do it out in public, like — and I don’t do it in front of the boys. It’s just like if I have something bad to say about coaching and I’m about to lose my — I don’t do it in front of people. I take them somewhere where nobody else can hear it because it’s nobody else’s business.”
The goal wasn’t to have an argument, walk away and stay mad at each other either. Gunn said if there was a problem, they were supposed to figure it out right there and make sure it was finished before they left the room.
“You pull them into a room, you shut the door, and you go, ‘All right, here we go. What are we doing?’ Like, if you got a problem, we need to fix it now. We’ll fix it now so when we walk out the door, we don’t have a problem anymore. Right?”
That’s also where Gunn took a shot at how some backstage drama gets handled these days. He thinks adults should be able to confront each other, work through the problem and move on instead of letting everything keep boiling over.
“And that’s how grown-ass people deal with it. But nowadays, we don’t, and that’s sad. But there’s going to be people that are going to do that, you know.”
Gunn isn’t saying everybody in a wrestling locker room needs to love each other. His point is much simpler — hate each other if you want, but when there’s business to do, handle the personal stuff privately and get the job done.
What do you think about Billy Gunn saying wrestlers should settle their backstage problems behind closed doors and move on? Let us know in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
