The Gunn Club (Austin and Colten Gunn) are chasing their dreams in All Elite Wrestling.
The two brothers followed different paths to the promotion, but they’re bonded together by their shared background as second-generation wrestlers. Of course, their father is Billy Gunn, a renowned star who has enjoyed success in WWE, TNA and other promotions throughout his lengthy career. Nowadays, Billy is one of the elder statesman in AEW, and he’s watching his two sons blossom before his very eyes.
On a recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Austin and Colten reflected on their respective journeys to AEW. First, Austin described the underappreciated difficulty of being a stand-in for a live fan at AEW’s television tapings. He explained how he screams to the point of utter exhaustion to help add more energy to the matches and the overall shows.
“We started in Atlanta doing that, and I was injured at the time because I got injured in my debut, and I had nothing to really look forward to, that the kind of wrestler’s mentality of like oh, feeling bad for yourself,” said Austin. “But then when we got the opportunity, I was like, ‘Dad, do you just want to go out there and just yell for the boys? Yell for the girls and the guys performing in the ring?’ And I was like, ‘We’d be really good at that. We’re goofy, we could at least get some face time, me and you.’
“And that’s exactly what we did. And we just took it to the max, 110%, and we wanted to be the loudest ones out there just so fans at home were like, ‘Shut up. Shut up.”
Austin then reflected on how he knows that wrestling without any sound isn’t an ideal enviroment, so he tries to do his part in providing as much noise as he can, even if it physically hurts to do so. He also shared his gratitude for having the ability to spend time with his father and his brother in the crowd.
“I know what it’s like to be in there when there’s zero sound,” said Austin. “So I just wanted to at least just help them out in some regard, and then Colten started coming to the shows, and then Colten started wrestling, and we were out there, all three of us together and it was just so much fun. I mean you’re at AEW, you’re watching the best wrestlers in the world and you have a front row seat. I mean it doesn’t get any better than that.
“[I] just try to keep the energy out there for two straight hours, and after those two hours, my voice is dead, my head is just numb. It’s very hard to do. I heard somebody say like…all you have to do is cheer. And I was like wait a second. I was like you don’t know what it’s like. I am screaming at the top of my lungs like I’m on a roller coaster for two hours, trying to do chants and get everybody going and keep people alive. And it’s just one of those things that you don’t realize how hard it is until you try it.”
As for Colten, he reflected on the path he took into the wrestling business. Though he initially avoided following in his father’s footsteps, he eventually decided to follow his heart.
“It’s weird because I am the older brother, and usually the younger one follows the older one, but in this instance it’s backwards, so it’s a little weird,” said Colten. “But I always had, I don’t know if I lacked the confidence, or it was just like telling myself excuses, a little more scared to get into this realm of wrestling. I would always be like, ‘What if I get hurt, or what if I’m not entertaining enough?’
“Because I’m not as loud and outgoing as Austin, that’s just the way it is, and that’s the way it always will be. And I understand that, so I would always tell myself, and I think they were more excuses like, ‘Oh I can’t do this, I’m gonna get hurt.’ But just something kept telling me, and I moved to LA, I lived there for about three years and I was building million-dollar houses….I had like a pretty good life, and just something in the back of my head just kept, ‘Saying me and Austin could do this,’ or, ‘Me and dad and Austin could do this,’ and I’m like doing promos on my way to the job site. And it’s just like, okay I’m thinking about this way too much. And it just kept building [and] kept building.”
Colten then described how he secretly went to Rikishi’s wrestling school to determine whether he truly wanted to pursue wrestling. After the visit confirmed his desire, he dove into the wrestling world and left his old life behind.
“I called dad, [and] told him, I was like, ‘I think I do want to give this a shot,'” said Colten. “So I flew home for two weeks, I wrestled around with Austin at Flatbacks in Orlando, [Shawn] Spears’ school, and Breeze. So I did that, and I went back to LA, I packed all my stuff, quit my job, and I drove back to Orlando and started wrestling school in August of 2020.”
Now, the Gunn Club is at full strength in AEW, and they’re continue to grow with every passing match on AEW Dark.
RELATED: Austin Gunn’s AEW Dark Match Was Reportedly A Successful Tryout That Was ‘Never Intended’ To Air
The full episode is available here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3IALmHx7twwFxjOO4GDQrz?si=6sgdZwOUTLOs2NvryF1V4w
