Gunner Finished With TNA

[It's Damn Real!]

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If you ask me, it's no real skin off their back. Gunner was always a guy who had the look of a pro wrestling star, with none of the vocal talent or personality to accompany it. His work was fine. He could work up and down the card as you needed, even in main event spots (though probably not on his own).

Best of luck to him in the future and all, but TNA shouldn't feel too much from this "loss".

 

[MINISTRYrising]

I Have to agree with IDR, Gunner had very little in the way of Mic Skills, which really did hold him back, but he's not to bad in the ring and dose have a great look like IDR said so i'm sure he will do just fine. It would not surprise me if he ends up on NXT sometime in the near future.

 

[TDFG]

I'm a bit surprised, he was getting pushed for a while and was on Impact quite a lot, I think his feud against Sam Shaw was poor though, it didn't come off well and while Gunner has been away making movies Shaw hasn't really been around.

Is it a big blow, no, but I always though Gunner was one of those guys that with the right push he'd be a TNA man for years to come.

 

[Lowdown]

Gunner was talented in the ring to a degree, but he wasn't vital in the way of being at the top of card. He had a title shot from winning Feast or Fired, but that went to shit in hurry. He's a good mid-card guy and can also prosper in a tag team. I wouldn't mind seeing him with the Bullet Club. In the end, Gunner was just another brick in the wall at TNA, but not a foundation. Best of luck to him.

 

[rbv13]

Tremendous physique and decent enough in the ring to warrant a position on the roster. Unfortunately for Gunner his career belongs to the wrong era. '80s thru the mid '90s this guy would've been a hot addition to any roster. He likely would've found great success in the monster tag scene and the occasional main event run to oppose the baby faces. It is a shame TNA could make this style work today. Of the top of my head Gunner paired with Crimson and James Mitchell as their mouthpiece could have been wicked.

 

[Radical Canadian Goose]

Best of luck to Gunner. As a previous poster mentioned, he has the wrong look/style for this era. No knock on him at all. If TNA really wanted to push him, they could have gave him a good mouthpiece. Good luck Gunner (likely in Japan, just my thoughts)

 

[JerichoStreet]

Gunner had a pretty big push at 2013.

They could have worked his gimmick better, but hey, it's TNA.

It's Dixie Carter.

 

[Alex]

The most interesting thing he did was the thing with Sam Shaw (carried mostly by Shaw) and being an ex-army dude.

He was an ok talent but he didn't really do anything noteworthy. TNA has Bram if they want to push a big bearded guy, who's much better in the ring and has a personality.

Best of luck to him though.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Gunner had a pretty big push at 2013.

They could have worked his gimmick better, but hey, it's TNA.

It's Dixie Carter.

No they couldn't. He has the personality of a door knob. Name me one guy in the last twenty years who got over big time despite not being able to talk himself out of a paper bag.

 

[TellMeWhy]

Tremendous physique and decent enough in the ring to warrant a position on the roster. Unfortunately for Gunner his career belongs to the wrong era. '80s thru the mid '90s this guy would've been a hot addition to any roster. He likely would've found great success in the monster tag scene and the occasional main event run to oppose the baby faces. It is a shame TNA could make this style work today. Of the top of my head Gunner paired with Crimson and James Mitchell as their mouthpiece could have been wicked.

That's exactly what they should have done!

No they couldn't. He has the personality of a door knob. Name me one guy in the last twenty years who got over big time despite not being able to talk himself out of a paper bag.

Brock Lesnar! Daniel Bryan! Hell Bobby Lashley who is now in IMPACT!

TNA failed on Gunner plain and simple. They put him with Sam Shaw and derailed his entire momentum he gained from his feud with James Storm all onto a wacky storyline with a wacky character like Sam Shaw and his girlfriend Brittany (who TNA got rid of for whatever reason).

All they had to do was put him in a tag team with another guy on the come up like Crimson, make them a powerhouse team and have a manager and both guys could have gotten over until they were ready to split them into singles guys.

Gunner has a great look, was patriotic. They just didn't put him in the right situations to capitalize on. I love TNA but don't excuse their incompetence on failing to capitalize on guys who could have been more for the company

 

[It's Damn Real!]

I've said for years, Gunner is a guy who I wanted to love. Wanted to. Badly. The look, the intensity, the work rate was there. His feud with Storm proved that in the ring, he belonged. But the moment they gave him a mic, he fell flat on his face. Hard as could be. It just derailed it every single time.

Maybe the answer was like you said, getting him into the right tag with the right manager to speak for the team, but they never went that route long enough to find out.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I'm quite surprised by this, I'd always assumed Gunner would have been a TNA lifer. He just seemed to "fit" with the company. However, he was never one of the top guys in the company, so I don't think him leaving will hurt TNA much in the long run.

I've always enjoyed Gunner's work. He has a bad ass look, is a good power/brawler worker, it's just his mic work he needs to work on if he wants to progress. I wouldn't be surprised if he pops up in NXT, he's certainly got the look Vince likes as well as being a patriotic ex-soldier- we know Vince loves his millitary men. However, I reckon he'll end up in Japan, where his lack of promo skills won't be as important and his in-ring style would be very appreciated.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

That won't happen. "Mic work" is something you're born with. You either have it, or you don't. It develops very early in people, and when you're a later-in-lifer like Gunner (33), the chances of you bucking that for any reason are slim.

I liked watching Gunner wrestle. I just hated just about everything they actually did with him. It always felt forced, and he never felt like a natural fit outside of a couple of great mid-card feuds (Storm, for example) and tag matches.

 

[Planet_Velvet]

TNA's failure to use guys is nothing new. Gunner is a big dude. I'm not sure if TNA just grabs a guy with a great body and puts him on the roster and expect that alone to be great. That formula obviously doesn't work for them (poor Rob Terry was used completely wrong). There's no real character development, apparently. So Gunner leaving is probably the best thing for him. Samuel Shaw is right behind him as well.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Gunner/Corbin would be unstoppable. Admittedly that kinda goes against the "Lone Wolf" persona, but imagine the carnage of these guys vs the Wyatts? And the NXT tag division has been missing the dominating monster team since the Ascension got rap... Er... "Promoted" to the main roster.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

TNA's failure to use guys is nothing new. Gunner is a big dude. I'm not sure if TNA just grabs a guy with a great body and puts him on the roster and expect that alone to be great. That formula obviously doesn't work for them (poor Rob Terry was used completely wrong). There's no real character development, apparently. So Gunner leaving is probably the best thing for him. Samuel Shaw is right behind him as well.

Shaw kind of sucks. One-trick pony. Doubt he goes on to do much else. He never even came close to getting over with TNA. I remember seeing that whole Gunner/Shaw/Anderson thing at the live tapings in New York last year. Holy fuck, what a bore. The crowd was chanting all kinds of stupid shit during that match and booing and jeering the entire time.

That's on all three of them, really, but especially Gunner and Shaw, who gave the fans little reason to care about them. Shaw had a good, short-run with the Christy thing, but it went nowhere ultimately.

Gunner/Corbin would be unstoppable. Admittedly that kinda goes against the "Lone Wolf" persona, but imagine the carnage of these guys vs the Wyatts? And the NXT tag division has been missing the dominating monster team since the Ascension got rap... Er... "Promoted" to the main roster.

OK, that's wonderful. But that's for the WWE section.

 

[Alex]

I really did like the Samuel Shaw stalking Christy Hemme thing but it says something when I haven't seen him on tv in months and haven't wondered where he was.

All the people saying Shaw and Gunner were wasted talent if they hadn't been released would you be thinking about them right now??

A good/interesting wrestler makes you check out what happened to them. For me I checked out ROH to see what Chris Sabin was doing, I checked out NJPW to see what Alex Shelley was doing. I was interested in these guys. Shaw and Gunner not so much I doubt I'll check out what they do unless they improve drastically. I mean let me reiterate a point I made before we've got Bram, a much better version of what Gunner could have been and James Storm is doing the creepy stalker thing so much better than Samuel Shaw ever could either.

 

[Planet_Velvet]

Shaw kind of sucks. One-trick pony. Doubt he goes on to do much else. He never even came close to getting over with TNA. I remember seeing that whole Gunner/Shaw/Anderson thing at the live tapings in New York last year. Holy fuck, what a bore. The crowd was chanting all kinds of stupid shit during that match and booing and jeering the entire time.

That's on all three of them, really, but especially Gunner and Shaw, who gave the fans little reason to care about them. Shaw had a good, short-run with the Christy thing, but it went nowhere ultimately.



OK, that's wonderful. But that's for the WWE section.

Let me guess: they all wrestled like mechanics and stayed so into each other, they forgot about the fans. Then again, they may have just been bad in the ring too. I liked the whole deal with Sam stalking Christy. It seems like they put some thought into and then POOF it disappeared after going nowhere. Both guys had great opportunities and didn't take advantage of them.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Let me guess: they all wrestled like mechanics and stayed so into each other, they forgot about the fans. Then again, they may have just been bad in the ring too. I liked the whole deal with Sam stalking Christy. It seems like they put some thought into and then POOF it disappeared after going nowhere. Both guys had great opportunities and didn't take advantage of them.

The live tapings? Nope, it was just a story no one cared about. It featured a lot of weird little Shaw trying to save Gunner/Anderson, Anderson shoving Shaw, calling him creepy, etc. shit. The crowd was basically verbally rioting, chanting "CM Punk", "Boring", etc. during the entire thing.

I think the problem with Shaw's thing is that it was basically a one-off by design. How do you do the stalker thing and then... continue to be a stalker after? You kind of can't. You have to have something else to fall back on.