Billy Gunn On Steve Austin Being Bigger Than Hulk Hogan, How It Was To Work With The Rock

Billy Gunn was the guest on the latest episode of AEW Unrestricted. Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards went through Gunn's WWE career from The Smoking Gunns transitioning to The New Age Outlaws with Road Dogg. Schiavone asked if Gunn still keeps in touch with Road Dogg, and he talked about the "magic" that they had when it came to chemistry.

"Yes. People ask me all the time and I don't know what it was, I don't know how come we had such great chemistry because I knew him from work. I knew him from doing the road with Jeff [Jarrett]. We knew each other, but until the day they said we're gonna put you together to tag and the very first time we tagged, something and I don't want to say something corny like magical, but I don't know how to explain it," Gunn said. "There was that thing where we [just clicked]. I wish I had a thing to explain it, but I just don't. Me and him were working each other, but the minute we started tagging was [magic]."

Gunn talked about how while he wasn't the best talker, he was a great worker, and he and Road Dogg worked through each other to get the best out of each other. He called Road Dogg one of the best talkers in the business and shared a story about how Road Dogg would get nervous behind the curtain but would be able to cut a great promo when entering the ring.

"We literally just fed off of each other. That's all we needed. That's one of the reasons we got over so well is one, we were gonna get fired, so we had no reigns on us. We literally would just go do whatever we wanted to do, and it was never anything outlandish like we were trying to get fired. It was I get to be me. He gets to do what he does best, and we always worked off that. He is probably one of the best talkers that people don't realize in this business. He is so good, and people don't know a lot of stuff about him, but every night before we cracked that curtain, he was a wreck and would literally hang on to me and go, 'I have no idea what to say. Give me something.' We would sit there, and I would wait for our music and shove him out the curtain. It would just go, and he would do it every single night," Gunn said. "After a while you'd think it was funny or a rib, but it really wasn't. He just does it, until you put him that moment, and once you put him in the moment, he's on."

Gunn was asked about what it was like to work with guys like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Owen Hart. He talked about how guys like them and Stone Cold Steve Austin were so over that they didn't know it and the experience of working with guys like that.

"Dwayne was always easy to work with. He has a larger than life personality, and Owen, in his own right, he's a Hart. Do you need to say any more than that? At the time, those guys had huge personalities and were so over. I feel we need to get to that where people are so over that they don't understand the energy that comes with that," Gunn said. "Dude, it's life-changing. It's amazing to be in there with somebody [like that]. It never gets old. I've been there 1000 times with Austin, Steve, The Rock and some of those guys, but when you're out there and that s–t hits, talking music, it's another level of craziness. You're skin will peel right off of you because it's such an energy. People lose their minds. If that glass broke or 'if you smell', people would go insane, and when you're in it, you're just drop in the middle waiting. You just know it's on."

Gunn has talked about in the past on where The New Age Outlaws stand in tag team history. Schiavone asked Gunn about the team's first tag team title win against The Legion of Doom.

"They were great, but they came in and did what they needed to do. Kudos to them," Gunn said. "They were passing the torch, and they were passing it to me and Brian and what better guys than the two biggest names in tag team wrestling at the time."

While reminiscing about DX's run alongside Austin, Gunn said that nobody has ever been as hot as Austin was during the Attitude Era. He talked about how easy it was to work with Austin because of how they were able to accomplish so much without doing a lot.

"We got caught in bear traps. We got caught in springs. We got stuff dumped on us. We got hooked up. Steve had the ultimate character that had the ultimate bad guy, and he was smoking. To me, there's nobody that's ever been as hot as he was. No offense to Hogan. Hogan had a longer lifespan here and did certain things but just as a person that was over super fast, Steve was it," Gunn said. "We've had some greats, and it's not taking away [anything] from them, but Austin was another level because he played the part. He was the perfect guy. He's that guy, and he had the perfect villain in that guy that everybody hated. And there's not a person on planet Earth at that time that could not connect with him. That's what it was. It was just a connection that was so strong. As much as you didn't want to get into it, you couldn't help it because Stone Cold Steve Austin was the man. Like when you work him, that's a whole other level too. You're just so excited and so happy because you don't really have to do anything and that's for people that know what I'm talking about. It's cool. You get so much out of doing so little that's called being over."

Schiavone asked Gunn about memories of Chyna. Gunn has said before about the relief he felt when Chyna was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of DX. Gunn talked about how Chyna was his best friend and how it is still hard to talk about in-depth about her. Schiavone and Edwards understood Gunn, and Edwards asked Gunn about his favorite memories with Chyna.

"This is gonna be a hard one. She is my best friend," Gunn said. "She was amazing.

"Every one of them. It's still a little rough to kind of go there. She was amazing. She was so good and would do anything for you. Me and her were like best friends. She was an amazing person, and it absolutely crushed me just killed me."

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