10 Wrestlers Who Couldn’t Come Up With A Comeback
2. Billy Gunn
The Rock broke the rules of the promo, but was so fabulous that it hardly mattered. He built his opponents simply by not annihilating them - if their aura survived the onslaught, people were still going to pay for the match - but poor Bob Gunn stood no chance ahead of SummerSlam 1999.
On Sunday Night Heat, Rock, in mock prayer and with a wonderfully pathetic cadence, mimicked the Ass Man in a plea to God.
"Oh dear God...my name's Billy, and I just won King Of The Ring. But there's one problem: everybody still thinks that I absolutely suck!"
God responded. "Bob?"
"But my name's Billy!"
"It doesn't matter what your name is!"
This was such a phenomenal insult. It is iconic for its piss-funny delivery and emphatic, disastrous effectiveness, but there's a very well-crafted joke lurking beneath its legend. Billy Gunn's main event push was such a non-starter that even the omniscient God didn't know who he was. Rock's shadow loomed over Gunn's so definitively that he was shrouded entirely in darkness.
This was a solo promo, of course, but Gunn - a not inconsiderable banter merchant himself - didn't respond to it adequately on RAW nor Heat nor anywhere.
He was bantered off the face of the earth, left to rot in purgatory.