Son of former WWE Superstar Billy Gun, Austin Gunn, recently did his first-ever wrestling interview with WSVN-TV’s Chris Van Vliet while at Wrestling For Warriors in Florida. Austin first opened up about dealing with the backlash at school from his dad’s Billy & Chuck gimmick on TV:
“He kind of sat us down when that whole thing was getting really hot and he was like ‘Listen, your dad’s not really gay and this is a whole gimmick.’ But at school they’d be all like ‘Oh, your dad’s gay.
“Your dad’s kissing another dude.’ I’d be like ‘That’s not my dad. I have a mom. What do you mean?’ and I’d be trying to put the pieces together. I understood the business enough back then to know my dad wasn’t really gay. But I got a little heat for that.”
Austin is ready to begin his professional wrestling career after recently finishing college. He explained why he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and get into the business:
“Growing up and just being around the business, I met The Rock and Stone Cold and it was all normal to me at the time. In school kids would be like ‘What, your dad’s a wrestler?’ and it was just like an everyday thing for me.
“Growing up I kind of got a better understanding of the business and kind of how it worked and I was like ‘Maybe I’ll be kind of good at this.’ My parents said I couldn’t do it until I went to college and graduated first and that’s understandable. I just graduated this past Mother’s Day and I’m ready to get into it.”
As far as what his goals are in wrestling, Austin wants to establish his own name rather than ‘backpacking’ off his father’s gimmick:
“I think right now I just want to take it all in and be able to remember this experience. Remember coming here and having my first interview and having my first match and what that really meant to me and kind of establish a name for myself instead of backpacking off my dad’s gimmick.
“I don’t want to be known for that 100%, I want to make a name for myself so that other people know that I really want to do this and not just because my dad’s a wrestler. I really want to do this and I’m really passionate about it and I think I’m fairly good at it so I’m excited to see where it goes.
Austin then commented on whether or not he plans to use his “Gunn” name in wrestling:
“I have no idea because I’m not really in it yet. The ideas were flowing a little bit at first and obviously my father is Billy Gunn. I don’t know what my character is supposed to be yet because I’m not at that developmental stage yet in my wrestling career.
“Just to dip my feet in the water a little bit we had our first tag team match which was my first match just to kind of get into it and then I had a solo match and I had to go by something. So I was like my first name is Austin and I want people to know who I am at least just so they get an idea until I start taking that path.”
