Billy Gunn Says Modern Wrestlers Are “Lazy” and Don’t Know How to Work

Billy Gunn is never shy about speaking his mind—and now the WWE Hall of Famer is calling out today’s generation of wrestlers for what he sees as a lack of fundamentals and storytelling.

Appearing on ARWP, the 60-year-old AEW coach and Attitude Era legend gave a brutally honest assessment of the current wrestling landscape, accusing many younger talents of relying too much on flashy moves and not enough on psychology and character-driven conflict.

“Nowadays, nobody knows how to work,” Gunn said. “They don’t know how to work in general.”

He explained that he avoids teaching “crazy stuff” in training because “everybody does it nowadays”, and it’s led to a product that lacks meaningful conflict. Gunn believes wrestling isn’t just about moves—it’s about the why behind the match. He gave a blunt example of what real conflict looks like:

“There has to be a reason for us to fight. There has to be a reason for somebody to like me and hate you,” he explained. “Just because we’re going to wrestle, I don’t understand how you get into that.”

“The only conflict we need is, ‘You slapped my wife on the butt.’ Now there’s some tension there. Now I want to see Billy beat you up for touching his wife.”

Gunn didn’t stop there—he also took aim at wrestlers begging for crowd reactions. Calling younger wrestlers lazy, Gunn said most don’t use their body language, presence, or pacing to control the audience organically.

“Me doing a bunch of wrestling moves and begging you to cheer for me isn’t a thing. That’s not my thing to do. You bought a ticket to watch me. Why am I going to beg you to cheer for me?”

“They just want to go, ‘I’m going to do this move. I want everybody to pop for me first. They pop and then I do it.’”

The former DX member also reflected on his own career, noting how simple crowd psychology created lasting moments. Gunn further critiqued the modern in-ring style, saying the excessive dives and non-stop action may look impressive but leave fans unable to truly follow along:

“In the Attitude Era, I had so much energy and all I said was, ‘I have two words for you,’ and that was it—but there was so much energy. To this day it’s loud and not old.”

“They are so athletic that the people can’t follow along. They just know that at the end of all the moving around, when you stop moving for a second, they go, ‘Yay! Woo!’”

While Gunn is currently off AEW TV following the breakup of The Acclaimed, it’s clear he still has strong opinions about where the business is headed—and how far it’s drifted from what he believes made wrestling truly connect.