By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Austin Gunn and Colten Gunn
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Chris Van Vliet’s YouTube Page
On teaming together:
Austin: “So Colten has been in California when I started.”
Colten: “I was in Santa Monica. Right after college I was ready to move into corporate America. I was moving to LA and was building custom houses out there, like three stories with elevators. We had a few Lakers players move in and the CEO of Snapchat. I was doing that, I was in my trailer and on the job site, and for some reason I always, because him and dad were on AEW and doing their thing. So I just kept thinking of promos or moves or names of stuff.”
Austin: “He would just text me out of the blue like ‘This would be cool if you and dad did it. But it would be cooler if we did it.’ He was subtly over time just pushing and pushing.”
Colten: “So I called Rikishi because he has a school out there. I was like ‘Don’t tell my dad and don’t tell your students.’ But I was going to come in one time to see what it was like. Of course when I got there, I am like a clone of my dad, so everyone knew who I was. That didn’t work very well! So after that I called my dad and I said ‘Dad I want to try this, I went to Rikishi’s school…’ And he was like ‘Why didn’t you tell me!’”
Austin: “He was heated. We were driving to some town one day and he says ‘Did Colten tell you he went to Rikishi’s the other day?’ I went ‘Yeah.’ Then he went ‘Well why didn’t you tell me! What does he want? Does he want to be a wrestler?’ He started asking me and I’m like I don’t know.”
Colten: “So I took two weeks off from work and went to the Breeze and Spears school, Flatbacks. My dad said ‘Do you really want to do this? 110%, no half ass?’ No pun intended. So I quit my job in LA and drove across the country and started. In November that will be 2 years.”
On having a famous dad:
Colten: “That’s how I was at first, I did not want to be a wrestler.”
Austin: “Yeah he ran away from wrestling and I ran to it.”
Colten: “Yeah I was like I do not want to do this. Then for some reason I wanted to do this, I just wanted to do this.”
Austin: “I was getting more and more texts. Eventually I was like dude if you want to do it then do it, dad will train you.”
On Austin being the MVP of Daily’s Place during the Pandemic Era:
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 seven hours.”
Austin: “Yeah seven 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 seven 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.”
On trying to fill the shoes of The New Age Outlaws:
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.”
On seeing WWE stars growing up:
Colten: “They [The New Age Outlaws] travelled so much, but we would travel with dad sometimes in the summer when we didn’t have school, so we knew all the guys. But they travelled so much that when you are home for like two days, no one is going to come over.”
Austin: “We didn’t see Road Dogg as much unless we went to the shows. We maybe saw Big Show more, he gave us our first Playstation and Xbox at Christmas, at the same time. He was like ‘I have a little present for you, it’s in my trunk.’ He opened it and it was an XBox with 5 games, PS2 with 5 games and he goes Merry Christmas. I think he was the closest one to an uncle. We were on a wrestling cruise one time for Disney, and me and Colten were getting too crowded in the adults pool. There was like a captain’s pool, very private. Big Show took us over there so we could have some privacy. The boat captain comes out and starts yelling ‘Those kids, you need to get the hell out of this pool!’ Big Show was in the water and have you ever seen those workout videos where the guy jumps out of the water and onto the thing? That’s exactly what he did, as heavy as he was and he grabbed the captain by the collar and says ‘If you ever talk to them like that again, I will throw you over this boat and I will drive us home.’ The fear in that man’s eyes, dude I can’t even imagine! I would poop my pants.”
On being on TV with Billy Gunn:
Colten: “When he is on TV you are just drawn to him.”
Austin: “He is more of a camera hog than I am! He tries to downplay it.”
Colten: “This is the problem, I am the third. You’ve got Austin and dad fighting for this camera and I’m just there.”
On Danhausen calling them ‘Ass Boys’:
Colten: “We don’t really talk about that guy.”
Austin: “Bleep that out because that is a curse word to us.”
On the Billy and Chuck storyline:
Colten: “I was in 5th grade and the teacher I had in 2nd grade asked me ‘How is your other dad?’ I’m like what?”
Austin: “It’s like when you are talking to a new girl and they don’t know what wrestling is, I’m like ‘Yeah we went out there, the whole crowd chanted Ass Boys, we hated it and it was crazy.’ Then they are like what? And I’m like oh they don’t know about wrestling. When you are growing up, they would Google dad and it was the Billy and Chuck Storyline and they were like, what? What is this? What are you guys into? Sometimes it is super awkward when you are trying to explain what we do.”
Their tag team dream match:
Austin: “It would be The New Age Outlaws. Actually no, because dad hits really hard and he beat the crap out of us at practice one day. We were like ‘Me and Colten are gonna wrestle this new kid.’ Dad was like ‘Maybe I will jump in and be his tag team partner.’ We are like ok, whatever. Literally a warehouse with three people in Flatbacks, Breeze, Spears and a student. When that guy tagged my dad, I don’t know, but his pupils just went and he turned into a machine. I was like is he going to him me, and he was like right in the nose boom! I get up and again boom! I get up and I’m like do you realize you are doing this. He says ‘Sorry guys I get a little jacked up in there.’ Dude my nose is bleeding do you not realize? He’s like ‘No I kind of blacked out, I got the tag and I blacked out.’ Just like boom, psychopath.”
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