Bruce Prichard shoots on why The Rock didn't want to work with Billy Gunn 

Billy Gunn was an amazing athlete, one of the most underrated stars in my opinion

This was absolutely 100% bad booking for Billy. They tried pushing him way too fast with Austin and Rock. Billy was definitely a solid worker but he needed much more time to grow and get over as a singles competitor.

Rock: "my name is billy...AND I ABSOLUTELY SUCK!"

Bad booking to put Billy with the Rock so soon. Billy needed a good midcard feud to go over in.

I love the fact he used the nas song "ether" as a reference for going and dissing someone worse than they dissed you lol.

"Bob" "But my names Billy " "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS "

The People’s Ass vs The People’s Champ!!!

Billy Gunn: "Oh dear God, my name is Billy. I just won King of the Ring, but there is a problem... Everyone still thinks that I absolutely suck" *The heavens open up and God himself looks down at Billy* God: "Bob.." Billy Gunn: "But my name's Billy" God: "It doesn't matter what your name is!"

There's a reason Road Dogg did the talking in their team. The outlaws were very popular at the time and I never liked them splitting up. I think it's all because Vince isn't a fan of tag teams and always ends up breaking them up eventually even when they are a big draw.

Bruce was spot on, because remember HHH wasn't feuding with top guys off the bat, he was built up, put with Chyna, and given the IC title then after a year or so he was ready for the main event. Gunn was shot to the top too quick. He should've worked with mid level guys first then gradually pushed.

“Triple h did you beat the rock? You damn sure you did. Did you do it by yourself. You damn sure you didn’t!”

Mr ass was one of the most underrated workers in the business.p

I truly believe if Billy Gunn wasn’t a part of DX, Rock would have gave him the time of day. But you can tell the real life heat between Rock and Triple H seeped through that Billy & God promo....

I just went back and watched the match from Summerslam 1999 and his match with The Rock was pretty decent. He did just as good in that match as The Rock did. It wasn't nearly as bad of a match as they're making it out to be. To compare him to Gangrel or the Brooklyn Brawler after that match is ludicrous. It was a decent match

Rock didn't have no problem putting over al snow or hurricane i think he just didn't want to work with dx individually he worked with dx for a couple of years

I thought they could have done more in a singles run with Billy Gunn but maybe pairing him with the Rock too early on just ended any potential run he could have had.

Billy could have worked as a champion for the IC. He would have been big if they just slowly turned the New Age Outlaws into a single and manager type of deal. Road Dogg could just become a manager and get Billy some heat

It took a very rare talent to keep up with the Rock at that time and come out looking better in the end. Billy Gunn's limitation was his promo ability. That was the kiss of death against the Rock. You either had to be a monster like Kane or Big Show, or have a presence like Austin, Undertaker, Angle, Mankind, or Preperation H to hang with the Rock.

8:00-8:20 While Pritchard just responds "Yeah..." sums it all up lol

Conrad: do you like blue or red Bruce : Red Conrad: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

When the Rock did the promo where he made fun of Billy's entrance music where he changed it from "I'm an ass man" to "I'm an ass hole" that was one of the greatest and funniest promos in WWE history there was no way Billy could've come back from that.

The rock was so over in 1999 I don’t think people realize that sometimes

Billy Gunn is still in great shape and wrestling. Too damn bad they couldn’t cultivate him into a legacy career.

Billy Gunn's whole gimmick was that he thought he had a great ass. As a tag team wrestler, it's funny and cool. As a main eventer, that gimmick will never work. No top guy is going to want to put over someone named Mr. Ass on PPV.

I always thought that Billy Gunn packaged JUST as Bad Ass Billy Gunn (not Mr Ass, not The One) had main event potential. I was rooting for it for sure. I remember Rock burying Billy and it was the first time I ever saw a wrestling promo where I thought "That definitely just killed that guy off".

There never was going to be 2 main eventers coming out of DX. Billy was just a filler feud for Rock then he went back to being HHH's lackey when he needed DX to prop up his run.

Billy Gunn was never meant to be more than what he was..which was pretty damn good.

“The Rock has one question...who is booking this crap? First it’s The Rock versus Mr. Ass and now it’s The Rock versus Gangrel? Well, so what?”

"ether him" conrad's a deep ass hip hop fan wtf

I think they just waited too long to give Billy Gunn a huge push. He was pretty popular in late 98/early 99 as a single going after Ken Shamrock's IC title. There was an episode of Raw where he and Shamrock had a show stealing match and Gunn got the win. The fans thought he won the title, but commissioner Shawn Michaels came out and said it was a non-title match. Fans went crazy for what they thought was his title win. They should have given him the belt on that night. Instead, Gunn and Shamrock ended up having a boring rematch at the next ppv and Shamrock retained the title. I think Gunn lost a lot of momentum at that point.

I remember that summer slam title match for triple h. I was at it. Triple threat with h, mankind, and stone cold. Rock had match against Billy gun too that night. Man I was just a kid and thinking why the hell the rock wasn't in the main event that night. Regardless, he stole the show. Arena went nuts during the elbow. Such good wrestling times.

This show is sooo much better when Bruce is straight forward and in this case brutally honest about Billy Gunn instead of giving answers that he thinks Vince wants to hear.

there were just so many good and great wrestlers back then.

Going from working with Undertaker, Austin and HHH to working with Billy Gunn (even if he had just won the 1999 King of the Ring) was a real demotion.

3:25. IT WAS THE NAME! Nobody will cheer or boo "THE ASS MAN" . You'll just laugh and/or shake your head

The time to build Billy as a singles wrestler should have been during the WCW invasion

Billy Gunn looks like Andre The Giant on AEW these days, compared to all the modern guys lol

Billy was made for an lengthy IC run ala Honky Tonk, Perfect, Rude or Shawn.

I was gone from wrestling as a fan by this point, but was not 100% alienated yet and would still take an occasional casual peek. Especially since I live in Minneapolis, and Summer Slam 99 was in Minneapolis. Once the winner of King of the Ring wasn’t being given the Summer Slam main event shot, I knew his goose was cooked. And he was done.

The first time Rock did the "it doesn't matter what your name is" line was one of the funniest things ever.

The Ass man was my fav! He could of beat HHH & HBK

Can we just say... the Attitude Era from 97-99 was entertaining but had some bad matches. 2000-01 was better as far as both entertainment and matches. Getting Kurt Angle, Eddie, Benoit, Dean, Y2J, pushing Rikishi, pushing Val Venis helped build WWE even better

I love The Rock. But I disagree with him on this. I still believe Billy Gunn had main event potential. They just pushed him too soon. The WWE was already in the process of transitioning Triple H to the main event. So sending two people from the same faction to that important role in the same year seemed too premature. Give Billy the IC title. Let him work his way up a little bit. But don't feed him to wolves abruptly by facing a megastar like The Rock at a huge event like Summerslam.

Everybody remembers THE promo (which was on Heat, it wasn't even on Raw) but The Rock took numerous beatdowns from Billy Gunn that summer. Billy wasn't over as a singles heel, plain and simple. Unlike HHH, he didnt change his gimmick post-DX. He also wasn't great on the mic. At least The Rock feuded with him... He didnt refuse to work with him, unlike a lot of top guys back then.

Handing The Rock a hot mic back in the day was a death sentence for his opponents. He used to embarrass triple h so bad

I think a European Championship run would of did billy some good before getting in there with the rock

Half of this is ads and empty air time. I had to check if I paused the video there is so much silence.

If anything, The Rock vs Billy Gunn, and the way it was booked, as Conrad and Bruce put it, this helped The Rock's career excel. It made him look like a massive star.

Bruce is still doing podcasts? How does he find the time?

Greatest theme song of all time!

Listen, that conversation with God promo buries anybody on the roster at that time. It is by far one of the greatest promos ever cut. while I don't think that Billy gun was ready, you can't blame him for not being able to recover from that. 🤣

My question is, who else would they book Billy with around that time? What other faces did we have in the Summer of 99?

93: Bret didn't get a title shot for a long time, but he was undoubtedly THE top guy at that time, even over Luger and Yoko 94: Owen got a title shot at summerslam in a classic against the top guy 95: Mabel got a title shot at Summerslam in a poor match against the top guy 96: Austin didn't get a title shot for a while, faced Sid on Raw the next year 97: HHH didn't get a title shot for a while, but he faced Bret on Raw 98: Ken Shamrock......I don't think had a PPV title shot after this and I don't think he faced Austin or Rock while they were champ? so 99: Billy Gun..... didn't get a title shot, but he did get to face the top guy without many single matches before to prove himself.....i dunno if it's justified

Like John Cena told Roman Reigns. You either step up or step aside. Billy couldn’t keep up. The attitude era locker room was a different beast!!

they should have booked billy against rikishi. both were stuck in that weird position of being over, having the distinct look and can go but are not main eventers just yet but at the same time if you book them in a feud that might look good on paper against someone like hardcore holly you just demoted them to the hardcore tier.

Seriously though a wrestler called "Mr. Ass" as a top guy?

Billy Gunn had/has a great physique and is definitely a good in ring athlete. He's also 100% a tag team guy, every singles push he ever had, either as RockaBilly, Mr. Ass, The One, all flopped. So Rock saw this as a transition feud, until his next big feud.

The Rock at one point used to sit at the commentators booth and commentate his own match. You do not put an unproven singles wrestler up against The Rock and expect the poor guy to do well lol.

The failed Billy Gunn experiment reminds me of their (extremely brief) attempt to get Lance Storm over. I feel bad for Lance. I kinda laugh at Billy Gunn too.

Match looked decent in the People's Champ DVD with editing ;)

It wasn't a tough break. It wasn't hindsight. It wasn't an experiment gone bad. Billy Gunn was a tag wrestler. He was Dennis Condrey. He was Robert Gibson. He was Marty Janetty. Nothing more. He was a GOOD tag wrestler, but he had no business on a microphone, or in the ring as a single competitor.....

The math makes sense. No pops were louder than the new age outlaws coming out, go back and turn on your stereo system- plus, billy gunn looked the part of a guy who can go toe to toe with a world champion.

Billy Gunn is a good talent what they did they put them in too soon . To work with the Rock you need a LOT of preparation, a excellent story line, adequate promos. That's way Billy Gunn didn't seceded 🤔💥

lol Rock was a a trip.

Like so many guys, someone like Billy easily could have been a top guy if they booked him right. He was good in the ring, on the mic, and looked convincing. Vince just liked who he liked. Look at guys like Caesaro or Rusev who even managed to get over on their own. If Vince didn't approve, it doesn't happen.

Bruce saying “ yeah “ was hilarious !

Does any one remember when Billy Gunn had that gay gimmick with Chuck Palumbo ?

Petty Revenge for him winning “Brawl for all”

There is no "maybe a little brutal" with the Rock's prayer... it was brutal as hell! Hysterical but brutal.

Why does everything get called a "shoot" interview? Most of these videos are just perspective interviews about the past. Shouldn't a "shoot" contain some emotion?

Conrad said that Billy Gunn was the same size as Hulk Hogan, but that's not correct. In his hey day, Hulk Hogan was 6'7", 300+ pounds, while Billy Gunn was billed as 6'4", 269 lbs, and looked noticeably leaner than Hogan in his prime.

The Rock could carry any match or feud he was in.

The Rock vs Billy overall was a decent match

I remember thinking that this feud was a massive downgrade for Rock.

Hunter was NEVER on The Rock's level...there's a reason Dwayne Johnson is the biggest movie star on Earth and Paul is Mr. Stephanie McMahon.

Why have him go from tag team to a program against the most over guy in the business at the time. When Shawn and Bret went solo they had to work their way up the singles card.

Few years later Brock wins king of the ring and beats Rock for the Undisputed title at summerslam lol

i def. think they dropped the ball with how they built billy's single run but then again we might have never had billy and chuck if they didnt lol wud love to hear billy's thoughts through this time period

Billy couldn't be taken seriously by calling himself Mr Ass.

Did anyone else catch the Gangrel reference? I always thought Gangrel was considered a solid working hand in wrestling, was that not the case?

After reading Bret’s book … this was what I learned. You absolutely will get buried if you don’t stand up for yourself. When they wanted Bret to be cowboy bret hart … he hated it. He stated: “from where I come, if you’re gonna call yourself a cowboy, you better really be one”. So he goes to the booker and comes up with a better alternative. Why not put him and the Anvil (who was also running as a single at the time) in a tag team and call them the hart foundation. Vince loved the idea and gave them the go. That was the thing about Vince … the man could be an asshole back then, but if you took the initiative to come up with a better idea, he wouldn’t shoot it down. Whatever draws more money right. This wouldn’t be the first time Bret stood up for himself. And it helped. Billy should have shot the storyline where he gets his face buried in someone’s ass, down. He had pull. He could have made it happen. I’m not blaming Billy as much as I’m blaming creative and Vince for letting it happen. But he should have stood up for himself. As for the Rock, I can understand why he wouldn’t like someone like Billy. The Rock had taken a lot of shit, including racism when he first came in. Ironically enough, it was Bret who defended the Rock to Vince, and told him that he can have a match with the Rock and show him what the kid’s capable of. To this day, the Rock praises Bret. Watch the Rocks interview for a movie he did with Emily Blunt, and the interviewer’s wearing a Bret shirt. The Rock stops the interview midway to comment on the shirt and how much Bret means to him. It’s amazing.

And yet you don’t really hear Billy still pissing and moaning about it. That must be a first in this business

Rock was funny on the mic which is no secret. Stone Cold was also funny on the mic. But, I do believe that if BG had some type of mic skills he’d could sorta match up with Rock. BG had size and all of the physical tangibles which is no secret, but the mic skills he needed to work on and I agree that he should of gotten his feet wet a little bit more as a singles competitor.

Billy should fine went for the IC title after King of The Ring, maybe be a eurocontinental Champion but they should’ve gave him to add more to the king of the ring win. Then overtime grow his talent to fit more of a single format then have him enter the main event.

I kinda wish Road Dogg was pushed just to test the waters, cool look, super over, and amazing mic skills

If you asked me there was some backstage politics going on for the push of Billy Gunn and Vince McMahon was going along with it but truth be told Billy gun didn't have the charisma Mic skills or talent to be a main eventer let alone to be a midcard he's just a tag team guy and The Rock knew that so that's why the rock cut that promo on him

That's a shame (if true). There were wrestlers who put The Rock (Rocky Miavia) over in the beginning and I am sure that some complained as well. Should be a no brainer to "return the favor" for other guys in the business.

Billy is known for his tag team matches not singles this was doomed b4 he walked out the curtain

The guess The Rock changed his tune on working with lower guys, cause he worked with Hurricane and Gregory Helms spoke of how The Rock helped him and sold his stuff.

For the Rock to be as electrifying as he was early 2000s , they still wanted triple h to maintain the belt most of the time I was watching ..over the Rock over stone cold they held it briefly every time ...I think once the rock had the title for awhile but most of the time he would lose it

The match was good.

BOB!!!!!!

My opinion is if Billy wanted to go into business for himself Rock would be helpless to stop him. Billy Is a freak of nature athlete

Billy gun is a boy stable all star

Calling Billy Mr. Ass was never a main event move. He had the look, the ability and reasonable mic skills, but everything never quite gelled.

I get the feeling that Billy is still around and they don't want to piss him off....

Next week they’ll have The Rock laying the smack down on the Brooklyn brawler.....lmao classic

Did Conrad just use the term "Ether him" ?

It was interesting that Billy Gunn was paired with Rock but it was all very 99 wasn't it? Some unexpected direction you just go with. Wwe always wanted to push Billy Gunn, but he's just a guy who looks really good in tag matches.

Basically The Rock didn’t want to work with any member of DX accept for Triple H