What prevented Billy Gunn from being a breakout star

[finnbalor1]

For me he was the same as Cesaro,better as a tag guy then being a world title contender. He never seemed like a top guy material.

[JimRiga]

I just don’t think he was unique enough to stand out at the top.
Good for an Intercontinental division though.

[Deleted]

always felt he was a tag team type wrestler. smoking gunns and NAO were both great with him in them.

[Nivro™]

IMO charisma .... I never found Billy Gunn to be "over"...DX & NAO were over. As long as he was part of that people loved him. Once he was on his own or in a different team I dont really think people cared. Even most of his run where he tried to be a solo star he had to ride off the DX name.

[PJ]

Never pictured him as a main event world champion type singles star. I didn’t even see him as a challenger for the word title. To me he had a ceiling of Midcard talent. But as a tag team wrestler I felt he and his partners could be champions and main event some shows.

[MKSavage]

I can't remember where I saw/heard this, it may have been on one of the biographies that WWE recently released through A&E, or on one of the podcasts of Bruce or Cornette. They did plan to make him a singles star and wanted him to be in the main event scene. They thought he had a good look, could talk on the mic, and was a solid worker. This was in the year he won the KOTR tournament, I think that was 1999 or 2000. That win was supposed to be his first push into the main event scene. They said they paired him with the Rock to see if he could "hang" with the top talent, apparently that feud didn't go so well. The Rock killed him on the mic, and they said that while the matches were fine, Billy just didn't have what they thought he needed to be in the main event scene with Stonecold, the Rock, Mankind, Taker, Triple H, etc. Also later in 1999, you had an influx of new talent that did better in that scene: Kurt Angle, Y2J, Chris Beniot and eventually, Eddie Guerrero. He kind of got lost in the shuffle.

[JokerFC]

Feb 27, 2023 9:27:45 GMT -5 MKSavage said:

I can't remember where I saw/heard this, it may have been on one of the biographies that WWE recently released through A&E, or on one of the podcasts of Bruce or Cornette. They did plan to make him a singles star and wanted him to be in the main event scene. They thought he had a good look, could talk on the mic, and was a solid worker. This was in the year he won the KOTR tournament, I think that was 1999 or 2000. That win was supposed to be his first push into the main event scene. They said they paired him with the Rock to see if he could "hang" with the top talent, apparently that feud didn't go so well. The Rock killed him on the mic, and they said that while the matches were fine, Billy just didn't have what they thought he needed to be in the main event scene with Stonecold, the Rock, Mankind, Taker, Triple H, etc. Also later in 1999, you had an influx of new talent that did better in that scene: Kurt Angle, Y2J, Chris Beniot and eventually, Eddie Guerrero. He kind of got lost in the shuffle.

They did. HHH, Jarrett & Gunn were the 3 that Vince eyeballed to be Austins next opponent. HHH got the nod...aside from anything else? His heat was nuclear after turning on DX.