Who would you vote for the Billy Gunn Award?

[MaciniRocks]

This is the Billy Gunn Award we are talking about. The award given to the wrestler who was given a chance and failed miserably at it. Potentially falling flat on his or her face. For futher explination, I would like to give the floor to Mr. Adam Copeland from the King of The Ring 2001 Ceremony.

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Billy Gunn was the 1999 King of the Ring winner who was given that chance that so many others in the past had been. The only winners of KOTR who didn't go on to great heights were Billy Gunn, Mable and Owen. Owen was of course because of his tragic accident that fateful night at the ill-named "Over the Edge" PPV. Mable just never really was more than a midcarder at best and probably spent his best days in Men on a Mission. But that's another argument for another time.

Who would you give this year's Billy Gunn Award to? Who do you feel was given the ball and fumbled it out of bounds? Does not have to be in WWE, doesn't even have to be a male competitor. But make sure there is some reasoning behind your choice.

Personally I will hand out this award to Jack Swagger. The kid came into the year guns blazing. He took the ECW title from Matt Hardy at Royal Rumble, then had what I consider the best program ECW has had all year with Christian. He was brought over to RAW and had one hell of a match with Cena. But since then... he has been lost in the shuffle. They attempted to give him something it seemed with the winning streak but that was killed. And his apparent program with Miz was also 86'ed. Now the IWC is calling for him to return to ECW and regain momentum that he lost....

He started out great but has fizzled. I like the kid, minus the lisp, but I can get over that. It's a shame to do it but....

My Billy Gunn Award for 2009 goes to "The All American American" Jack Swagger

 

[all american sheamus fan]

i vote shawn michaels. the guy came into the year feuding with the undertaker and what now? he's triple h's silly lackey. he is just a midcarder lost in the shuffle behind big time talent like sheamus, drew mccintire, and evan bourne. i still think swagger has a chance though. another guy whose chances are not so good for a bright future at this point is chris jericho.

 

[Jesse Neal Swagger daddy]

i vote shawn michaels. the guy came into the year feuding with the undertaker and what now? he's triple h's silly lackey. he is just a midcarder lost in the shuffle behind big time talent like sheamus, drew mccintire, and evan bourne. i still think swagger has a chance though. another guy whose chances are not so good for a bright future at this point is chris jericho.

I hate to do it, but I have to agree. HBK has not done anything since his feud with ole booger red, and jericho is good, but i dont see him winning in the future. Drewy is really the new face of SD. While o'shaughnessy is tougher than nails. New blood is what we need.

 

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

i vote shawn michaels. the guy came into the year feuding with the undertaker and what now? he's triple h's silly lackey. he is just a midcarder lost in the shuffle behind big time talent like sheamus, drew mccintire, and evan bourne. i still think swagger has a chance though. another guy whose chances are not so good for a bright future at this point is chris jericho.

I hate to do it, but I have to agree. HBK has not done anything since his feud with ole booger red, and jericho is good, but i dont see him winning in the future. Drewy is really the new face of SD. While o'shaughnessy is tougher than nails. New blood is what we need.

I'm going to ignore the fact you have your sig in your post and continue. You can't be serious here. I think what the thread starter was really trying to get across was that to "Billy Gunn" something, you have to screw up a large substantial push, especially if it's your first. HBK got pushed for sure. In 1994. He doesn't need to be pushed anymore, he's a top draw already. He hasn't done anything since the Taker feud (debatable) because he can barely walk from all those years of main eventing. He didn't Billy gunn anything. He's not a midcarder at all, nor is Chris Jericho. Jesus.

As for the original post on Jack Swagger, it has less to do with him, and more the fact that creative has nothing for him at the moment. It's not like he can't get over, he has all the tools necessary, he just hasn't had an opportunity. Thus you can't really say he stuffed it up. Personally, my candidates for the Billy Gunn award, would have to be Mr. Kennedy. Seriously, there can be no doubt. He got so many pushes, so many attempts to build him into the superstar, and he just couldn't make it. If that doesn't scream lost opportunity to you I dont know what does. Other potentials might be someone like MVP, who was white hot after being drafted, and on the loss of his US Title, was ready to go. But I don't think the audience was ready for him, and he lost a lot of his spark, proving he couldnt hang as high as a face.

 

[Freddy4190]

MVP. Everyone was on his nuts when he was drafted saying how this man's gonna be the new WWE Champion. He's gonna own Raw, he's gonna be a main eventer! He flopped. Badly. He's now teaming with a incredibly bland man who resembles a drink. His face turn hasn't really done anything. He's just stayed in the mid-card feuding with people who are irrelevant and aren't helping his career.

 

[Dagger Dias]

My "Billy Gunn Award" goes to.... Kennedy!

He was going to be given a HUGE push when he was supposed to be the illegitimate son of Vince, before that storyline turned into the mess that it became with Hornswoggle/Finlay/JBL/etc.... and this was after the announcers constantly had put him over as having beaten main eventers and former champions. He messed up big time on so many occasions when he was about to get that one big push he needed. He would either have wellness policy violations, got injured, injured someone else accidentally, or any combination of the above.

Don't get me wrong, I was a big fan of Kennedy's.... but he kept messing up when the torch could have been passed to him, several times.

 

[Blade]

Since Kennedy has already been done, I'm gonna go with MVP.

The guy was brought into the WWE with a huge amount of hype surrounding him. He wasn't great at first, but he slowly started getting better, especially after his series with Chris Benoit. When he became US champion, his reign was one of the best US title reigns of the 21st century thanks mostly in part to the memorable feud with Matt Hardy. MVP was destined for big things, you knew he had a big future when he managed to get so over from a losing streak.

But then something happened.... He turned face. He turned face and ruined his heat and his character and no one really cared. Sure, when he first popped up on Raw this year, he delivered a decent promo on Orton. But I think Orton was the main reason that promo got such a good reaction. After that, face MVP just went downhill. And now he's in a random midcard tag team with Mark Henry that hasn't done anything since it was formed.

Also, Mabel was actually getting a good push after he won KOTR, but he messed it up after he crushed Undertaker's eye socket.

 

[NSL]

My "Billy Gunn Award" goes to William Regal. He's always been a gifted wrestler, and although his matches frequently bring out the "Boring" chants, they're still full of good wrestling.

He's always had that, and his promos have always been "not bad", if not solidly great. But, his personal demons always seemed to get in the way, and stopped him from ever being elevated above the mid-card. His KOTR win last year is already forgotten, and I nearly forgot he won the IC Title shortly after that. He could have been a champion in WCW at least, and never seemed to take the ball and run with it.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

I hate to say this, but I'm going to have to go with Dolph Ziggler. I've lost count of how many IC title matches this guy has had this year. And he was able to gain no momentum off being in feuds with Rey Mysterio and John Morrison what so ever. Then there was that boyfriend/girlfriend storyline he had with Maria that really wasn't interesting at all.

It pisses me off because this guy has the look and the athletcism. And to top it off he was made out to look like a joke, when Morrison called him, Mr.Ziggles. So my Billy Gunn award will have to go to, Dolph Ziggler.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I'm going to have to go with Kennedy. It's obvious that the WWE had big things in mind for Kennedy and was given push after push after push but something always kept fucking it up.

Whether the guy is injury prone, just plain clumsy or whatever, he kept getting hurt and put on the shelf, sometimes for months at a time and any momentum he'd gotten up to that point simply evaporated. So, the guy would start over and do his thing and kept getting hurt and being put on the shelf. He was suspended once for a Wellness Policy violation.

This was the guy that was originally supposed to be Vince McMahon's illegitimate son in what could very well have been one of the best angles in pro wrestling of this decade. By the time it was all said and done for Kennedy in the WWE, what we had was someone with potential and given numerous opportunities to get ahead within the WWE and he just couldn't do it. Maybe it was Karma or fate, maybe the stars weren't in the right alignment or whatever, but he couldn't break on through to despite essentially being handpicked to be the next big thing.

The WWE obviously saw something in the guy or they wouldn't have kept him around for roughly 4 years, despite the fact that he spent nearly half that time off of WWE television for one thing or another.

 

[Alex]

Im going with Matt Hardy, the guy was fueding with his brother for the first part of the year, this was intense and it got people interested, he was getting loads of heat for it and he was then drafted to Raw, did nothing had a few US title matches, went back to Smackdown, had a little thing with CM Punk and then got lost in the shuffle

Id also like to say John Morrison, he was being built on smackdown as a main eventer (having matches with Hardy and Punk), then Rey Rey gets suspended and dropped the IC title to Morrison who now has to work his way back up to where he was a few months ago

 

[FromTheSouth]

i vote shawn michaels. the guy came into the year feuding with the undertaker and what now? he's triple h's silly lackey. he is just a midcarder lost in the shuffle behind big time talent like sheamus, drew mccintire, and evan bourne. i still think swagger has a chance though. another guy whose chances are not so good for a bright future at this point is chris jericho.

I don't think that he is HHH's lackey at all. And calling him a midcared is ludicrous considered the Tag Title match is getting the most build up and is probably the real main event of the show. I also think that you may be an idiot for thinking that he is behind Drew McIntyre and Evan Bourne. For one, McIntyre is on the other fucking show, and Evan Bourne is the most worthless person on the roster. He is a jobber, will be a jobber for the foreseeable future, and will never be anything more than the guy who does the SSP almost as well as Kidman did. A vote for Shawn Michaels is a wasted vote, and this post was wasted space.

I hate to do it, but I have to agree. HBK has not done anything since his feud with ole booger red, and jericho is good, but i dont see him winning in the future. Drewy is really the new face of SD. While o'shaughnessy is tougher than nails. New blood is what we need.

Seriously, you vote for HBK when you have Swagger in your sig? Swagger wasted all his momentum by not being able to deliver a promo. The guy has all the talent in the world in the ring, got some rub from Cena, got featured in his call up segment, and never got the audience to care about him. Swagger is the new Billy Gunn, except not as interesting.

My "Billy Gunn Award" goes to William Regal. He's always been a gifted wrestler, and although his matches frequently bring out the "Boring" chants, they're still full of good wrestling.

He's always had that, and his promos have always been "not bad", if not solidly great. But, his personal demons always seemed to get in the way, and stopped him from ever being elevated above the mid-card. His KOTR win last year is already forgotten, and I nearly forgot he won the IC Title shortly after that. He could have been a champion in WCW at least, and never seemed to take the ball and run with it.

I like Regal, but unlike the other two guys I quoted, you at least made sense.

I am going with Swagger for the reasons I posted above. He was brought in with fanfare, and failed. He came in as FCW champion, and is now where? Losing to Evan Bourne!!! In all honesty, a guy with that much talent should be able to get over in the ring alone, but for whatever reason, just cannot get the crowd behind him.

 

[NSL]

I like Regal, but unlike the other two guys I quoted, you at least made sense.

I'm a big Regal fan as well...I like watching him on ECW, I just think there's a chance that he could have been main eventing Smackdown, had he not had just about everything go wrong.

I am going with Swagger for the reasons I posted above.

I agree that he has dropped the ball, but I'm too big of a fan to say it's done...Yet. He's still young, and can still turn it around and be a true main eventer in due time. It just won't be by next year's SummerSlam, like we all thought/hoped it would be.

I thought he came to RAW at the right time, and it clearly wasn't. Maybe he'd be served well by going to Smackdown, where it's taped, and he's not on live TV.