Billy Gunn Wants AEW Talent To Focus On Their Characters Over Moves

During a recent episode of Busted Open Radio, AEW's Billy Gunn spoke about the younger wrestlers on the roster. He revealed the one thing he'd like them to improve upon — doing less. The Hall Of Famer spoke about how their bodies cannot handle what they're doing.

"Back down on half of the stuff that they do," is what Billy wants them to do. "That, for me, is the biggest thing. There's a time and a place to crack out all of your stuff. But I feel that they're so young, they do not realize that their bodies are not going to be able to take this. So, they literally go out there, and it's not that they're working hard. They feel like if they don't do all their stuff, they're not working hard. That's not the case."

Billy Gunn provided an example as to how wrestlers do not always have to do every move possible in each match. He wants them to work around specific moves, rather than just fitting in flips and dives.

"If I am with an extra and I have four minutes on our YouTube show, I don't have to do a 450, and a Spanish Fly, and everything in my arsenal every single time I am out there. I feel they don't know how to go, 'okay, I want to do this and this. So, let me workaround 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," he said. "They don't structure matches like a psychologist would structure stuff."

Billy Gunn then broke that down in further detail. He admitted that some of the wrestlers do not get the fans emotionally invested in their characters. The former DX star believes fans are just popping for moves, rather than them as characters.

"I think one of the things is they're not letting the people get emotionally invested in them and letting them absorb what their personalities are. Because they just go, go, go, go, go, and the hardest thing for people to teach is don't do anything and get the most out of it, and then selling. It's just go, go, go and the people never have time to catch up. They think just because the people are making noise, they're over. That's it, 'I am it. Did you hear the people?'

"Yeah but, 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 of the tunnel. So I think a lot of it is not letting people into what their character, or who they are."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Busted Open Radio with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.