The Gunn Club were a big reason that AEW had some compelling content during the pandemic era in Jacksonville.
Austin and Colten Gunn, two-thirds of the Gunn Club, were recent guests on Insight with Chris Van Vliet. During the interview, Austin Gunn discussed his extremely active role as an audience member during the pandemic era. His participation led to him being dubbed the MVP of Daily’s Place.
Austin: “Absolutely I am owning that! First I was like oh I am doing a good job, but now I am owning this one. It’s like on BTE, Nick Jackson said ‘There is no crowd, there is just Austin Gunn.’ When I hear that it’s kind of true. Me and dad were there at Atlanta and we thought that we would have to film at Atlanta for the rest of time. We were like oh my gosh. It was very quiet and I was injured at the time, I said ‘Dad, do you want to just go out there and have some fun?’ He says ‘Yeah I will go out there with you.’ So I made water bottles with coins in them, I was like dude how can I make as much noise as possible. Just to let our talent and wrestlers know that someone is cheering for them. Fans are crucial in our business, we feed off of them and switch direction based off them. If they can feel something then it will make them feel comfortable. The opening scene to that Atlanta one is a camera right in my face going ‘Wooaaahh! I love it here!’ People online didn’t know me as a wrestler yet, they were just like who is this annoying kid? I just kept reading terrible comments about me, so I am getting attention. But then every week I would buzz Jamie, our camera guy, and every opening scene was right in my face. Over and over, and when we went to Daily’s Place I ramped it up. And my voice doesn’t give out, I can just keep going and going at like 2am.”
Colten: “We did like 7 hours.”
Austin: “Yeah 7 hours of yelling. Someone from our company said ‘Well how hard can it be to cheer in the crowd.’ Me and Colten looked at each other and I’m like I dare you to do what we are doing for 7 straight hours! Rinse and repeat, match after match. And then we would go in the back, change and wrestle at 2:30 in the morning. When we went out there everyone was like [claps quietly]. I’m like really? This is how we are going to do this? Let me take advantage of what I can do.”
Austin and Colten also talked about whether there was pressure to live up to The New Age Outlaws because of their father Billy.
Austin: “You don’t try to fill those shoes ever. That’s always one of those things that dad told us is like, it was never pushed on us. It was never ‘You have to live up to this level.’ He was like ‘If you have fun, I will teach you everything you know. If you are just trying to fill our shoes, then get out of the business.’ We still get super nervous before shows, but we just go out there and be ourselves.”
Colten: “I think if we are like, how are we going to fill the shoes of The New Age Outlaws, then you lose sight of who you think you are. What makes you different? The more we are in front of a crowd, the more we find ourselves.”
Read More: Road Dogg: The Gunn Club Will Be Huge Stars; If They’re Not, It’s Somebody Else’s Fault
