Ranking All 19 WWE King Of The Ring Winners
17. Billy Gunn (1999)
When you talk about trying to use King of the Ring as a
vehicle to push a wrestler, you have to talk about Billy Gunn, because he’s
proof that it didn’t always work.
Gunn was already a wildly successful tag team wrestler and part of one of the most popular stables during the Attitude Era, D-Generation X. But in 1999, WWF decided to push him as a singles star, and the kickoff to that was winning KOTR.
Unfortunately for Gunn, one of his first feuds was with The Rock, and you can guess that didn’t go well, at least promo-wise. Mr. Ass was shredded on the mic, lost at SummerSlam, and found himself back with Road Dogg as the New Age Outlaws by the fall. He’d land on the shelf with an injury in early 2000 and would see a series of stop-and-start pushes as a singles and tag team wrestler until his release in 2004.
Despite the numerous pushes, Gunn never amounted to more
than a solid tag team and midcard wrestler, which is a perfectly fine career,
but King of the Ring certainly didn’t help elevate him to the next level.