- Height: 6'3"
- Weight: 260 lbs.
- From: Austin, Texas
- Signature Move: The Famouser
- Career Highlights: World Tag Team Champion; Intercontinental Champion; Hardcore Champion; 1999 King of the Ring
The 6-foot-3, 260-pound phenomenon from Austin, Texas, was a natural athlete who could bust out a dropkick with textbook precision and hoist an opponent over his head with animal-like strength. He was charismatic, too. A cocky, in-your-face outlaw, Billy rocked with The Honky Tonk Man, threw a lasso as a Smoking Gunn and broke it down with D-Generation X. Still, despite a whopping 10 World Tag Team Title reigns and the 1999 King of the Ring crown, he’s remembered as a Superstar who should’ve been a bigger deal.
What stopped Gunn from becoming a WWE Champion? That’s hard to say. Starting off in 1993, he was a tag team specialist alongside his brother, Bart Gunn. As mustachioed cowpokes, the aptly named Smoking Gunns won the tag titles three times against duos like The Godwinns and Owen Hart & Yokozuna. Billy was the pair’s clear breakout star, but he stumbled when he changed his name to Rockabilly and linked up with the aging Honky Tonk Man.
Gunn’s career reached its peak when he returned to the tag division alongside Road Dogg. A fellow frustrated Superstar, the one-time Roadie convinced Rockabilly to abandon his outdated persona and embrace his inner outlaw. By themselves, the competitors were relative losers in WWE. Together, they became brash members of DX, five-time World Tag Team Champions and the most popular duo of WWE’s Attitude Era.
