WWE has had plenty of angles that should be locked away in the video vault. This can be down to some angles just not aging well or were so bad from an entertaining and story viewpoint that it’s best to just forget it happened. One angle that should be extracted from the June 25, 2001 edition of WWE Raw was the recently-returned Edge eating Billy Gunn alive on the mic.
Edge Runs Billy Gunn Down
So, it’s the summer of 2001, Edge has just won the King of the Ring. He’s in the ring with fellow KOTR competitor and regular tag partner Christian. The two of them are celebrating and reigning in the Age of Awesomeness. Glory! Oh yeah, Commissioner William Regal—the most competent commissioner the WWE has ever had—and Tajiri are there as well.
Now, I don’t know if the promo was discussed or gone over ahead of time or what. It couldn’t have been because what we saw was…brutal. It was a murder and we’re all witnesses to it. Out comes King of the Ring 1999, Billy Gunn. He’s annoyed because he was left out of the King of the Ring and had to hang out with noxious New York knuckleheads at WWF New York.
Alright, Billy, I can see how that was annoying. He didn’t have to come out while the King of the Ring was celebrating and give us that account of his Sunday evening, but alright. Edge proceeds to really dump on Gunn’s past two years and it was vicious.
Billy Gunn’s Career Up Until June 25, 2001
If you were watching at the time or went back and watched Raw between 1999 and 2001, you’ll see that it wasn’t the best for Gunn. He had since dropped the “Mr. Ass” nickname and was now “The One” Billy Gunn—which does have a nice ring to it.
However, since he won King of the Ring he went on to win the Tag titles two more times with Road Dogg for five reigns in the team and eight total. He also picked up the IC title, where the KOTR often led to first. Oh, and he was also in the final four of the Rumble and won the Hardcore title twice in February 2001. That was his two years between winning KOTR and this dire moment.
It wasn’t bad at all but you have to wonder how much gas was left in the tank for Billy Gunn’s push. Could he have been salvaged after those Hardcore title reigns? Did this collision course with Edge have to happen? If this didn’t happen would Billy still have ended up in the Billy and Chuck tag team?
The Video Evidence
I wonder about this often since Gunn just looked like someone Vince would want to get in the mix of things. I mean Edge did follow through with his royal decree and annihilated “Billy Bitchcakes”. At any rate, you can re-witness the murder of a king’s career here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGmP123tsKc&t=81s
SUBSCRIBE NOW: Get TheOvertimer’s Hottest Stories, Breaking News and Special Features in your email, CLICK HERE!
