In the early 2000s, the WWE made Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo a tag team and they had a controversial on-screen partnership that sparked a lot of talk. Recently on Chris Van Vliet’s “Insight” podcast, Billy Gunn opened up about this time in his life and how their storyline evolved.
The original concept that was pitched to Gunn and Palumbo did not involve them being a romantic couple. “When it (the Billy and Chuck gimmick) was first pitched, it wasn’t that… We wanted makeup people and the whole, very Chippendale-ish,” Gunn said. Not long after that, the story took a hard left turn. “We did that for a week and then it was, ‘Hey, by the way, you’re gonna marry him.’ And we went, ‘Whoa, wait.’ Not in a bad way but like, ‘How does it go from that?’ Could you have pitched that to us first? ’Cause that’s ok.”
Gunn's Acting Challenge
Gunn didn’t shy away from the complex role, though; he saw it as an acting challenge like no other. “It was fun. It really was. Because characters like that will really test if you’re good. At that moment in my career, it wasn’t that I was stale. It was, ‘Am I as good as I think I am in my brain that I can pull this off?’”
This storyline wasn’t just revolutionary – it also pushed everyone involved to their limits both creatively and personally as performers. It is still one of the most talked-about periods in WWE history because of how different everything about these characters were than anything else we had seen before or since.
Today Billy Gunn is still making waves within wrestling circles by working with AEW where he wrestles occasionally while mentoring up-and-coming talent behind-the-scenes; whereas Chuck Palumbo has largely stepped away from professional wrestling since 2014 to focus on his custom motorcycle building business as well as being featured on various TV shows.