Billy Gunn was a lot of things during his WWE tenure; he was a Smoking Gunn, liked Rockabilly, joined the New Age Outlaws, and even had a very… unusual relationship with his friend Chuck Palumbo, which was totally platonic and not weird at all. And yet, to many fans of the promotion, Gunn's biggest accomplishment – besides being Mr. A** – was his spot in D-Generation X, the faction that went on to define the attitude of WWE's TV-14 era and get thousands of kids expelled from school for demanding someone “suck it.”
And yet, after decades of having folks of all ages throw crotch chops in his direction whenever he passes by, Gunn has seen a marked change in how fans approach him, with their requests now being to “Scissor” them, as he detailed in an appearance on WrestleBinge.
“Yeah, I think so. They're both amazing, right? I was just at a signing this weekend, and people would come up to me, and they have their kids, and I'd go, ‘I get it. I'm a parent's worst nightmare.' I go from sucking it to scissoring, right? I don't know how my career has been so not parent-oriented,” Billy Gunn joked via Fightful. “I don't know, I think it's just two different eras and two different things. ‘Suck It' was with the DX stuff. It was iconic. There's nothing that's going to touch that because it was just so special, and it was so good.
“Not saying that this isn't. This is just something else. It's just different. The crotch chopping and all that stuff was in that era, which was amazing. Now, everybody is still – I walk through the airport, and all I do is scissor. It's crazy. On the other hand, it's amazing because you don't realize until you walk through the airport, or you're going through Walmart, or somewhere people are, that's all they want to do. So, on the one hand, it shows you how special it is, and I just think the two were different, but at the same breath, they are the same.”
You know, you really have to hand it to Gunn; through no fault of his own, he really has settled into the least parent-friendly career in professional wrestling history, with parents having to have mature conversations with their children about multiple gimmicks he's had over his 30-plus years in the ring. Still, it's pretty incredible to see just how relevant the 59-year-old remains at this point, as he's somehow getting some of the biggest reactions of his career 34 years in.
Billy Gunn's faction mate discusses representation in professional wrestling.
Turning attention from one member of The Acclaimed to another, Anthony Bowens was recently asked in an interview with Nerds & Beyond about LGBTQ representation in professional wrestling.
Being that it's Pride Month, Bowens was happy to discuss the matter and even complimented some aspects of how promotions are treating the subject – versus, you know, Billy and Chuck – before noting he would like to help present it better in the future.
“I think companies should be working towards better. For me, I’d want to present it the right way, considering how things were presented in the past, which was presented terribly,” Bowens said via Fightful. “So I’m actively trying to figure out what would be a good story to tell; what would be the right way to go. Because, again, if we are going to do it the right way, we’ve got to make sure that we are doing it the right way. It will be under a microscope because people want to see how this goes, how it plays out, how the story’s written. So there’s a delicacy to it too. It hasn’t really been done correctly before. So that’s something that I would like to probably do in the future.”
Despite being AEW's first openly gay champion, Bowens' sexuality hasn't really been a focal point in any of his storytelling with The Acclaimed or beyond, with some fans potentially not even aware of his orientation or relationship status. Maybe that's simply an oversight, as AEW rarely does relationship-based storytelling, even when the likes of Renee Paquette and Jon Moxley are on screen together, but if AEW does decide to lean into Bowens' status, it sounds like the “Sultan of Scissor” will make sure that it's presented with a deft touch, guaranteeing that fans aren't treated to another Billy and Chuck storyline, because, again, that was just plain awful at the time and has aged even worse with the benefit of hindsight.
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