Wrestling fans know Billy Gunn for his legendary WWE The Attitude Era tag team The New Age Outlaws with Road Dogg, or his modern exploits in All Elite Wrestling with his sons The Gunn Club and The Acclaimed. But before all that, he had a different and successful team: The Smoking Gunns, with kayfabe brother Bart Gunn.
The Smoking Gunns were fading as a duo as the Next Generation Era was giving way to the Attitude Era, so fans may not be very aware of the team and their accomplishments. Let’s take a look back at all the time the Gunns spent together, from their origins to their breakup and beyond.
10/10 met during training
Bart and Billy Gunn met surprisingly early in their careers. Billy Gunn had debuted in 1989 and Bart Gunn in 1991, but at one point in the early ’90s they met at a training school run by “The Continental Lover” Eddy Mansfield, whose biggest claim to infamy was revealing some of the secrets of wrestling John. stossel in 20/20.
School attendance was low, and according to Billy Gunn, he and his future tag team partner simply taught themselves techniques by watching wrestling on television and then trying to recreate it in the ring.
9/10 They joined as the Long Riders in IWF
Eddy Mansfield also had his own promotion in the early ’90s called the International Wrestling Federation, notably credited with being the first wrestling show to be produced at Universal Studios, where WCW, Impact and later AEW would record. The future Smoking Gunns also wrestled for the IWF, teaming as Kip Winchester (Billy) and Brett Colt (Bart) under the tag team name The Long Riders.
The cowboy theme would certainly continue in WWE, as would his championship accomplishments, as The Long Riders held the IWF Tag Team Championship during his time with the promotion.
8/10 Signed with WWE in 1993
The Long Riders got their big chance to impress WWE officials – and fans – at a taping of wrestling challenge in early April 1993. In their test match, which was not televised but later released on DVD Unpublished WWE: 1986-1995Kip Winchester and Brett Colt faced Barry Horowitz and Reno Riggins.
Emerging victorious in front of what was probably the largest crowd The Long Riders had ever wrestled in front of, the duo also managed to land a WWE contract, as they were booked on the spot.
7/10 Won the tag team titles in 1995
The Smoking Gunns made their official WWE televised debut a month after their tryout and spent the rest of 1993 and 1994 crushing the middlemen and taking on more notable opponents in pay-per-view matches.
In late January 1995, the Gunns earned their first televised shot at the WWE World Tag Team Championships, defeating Bob Holly and the 1-2-3 Kid in monday night raw. This inaugural tag title run would last 69 days, ending in wrestling 11 at the hands of Owen Hart and Yokozuna.
6/10 Sunny won as manager
Bart and Billy Gunn regained the Tag Title from Hart and Yokozuna, but after a 143-day reign, the duo had to vacate the belts, so Billy Gunn was able to receive much-needed neck surgery. Once Billy recovered, the Gunns returned to the ring and won the championship for a third time when they defeated The Godwinns in May 1996.
But by winning the belts, they also won over The Godwinns manager Sunny, who decided to ditch his old clients to manage the new tag team champions.
5/10 Sunny caused chaos in The Smoking Gunns
While getting a manager seems like a sign of success, it would prove to be The Smoking Gunns’ undoing with Sunny. It seemed that a romance was blossoming between Billy Gunn and Sunny, much to the annoyance of Bart Gunn.
Things would come to a head In your house: mind games when the Gunns lost the Tag Team Championship to the team of British Bulldog and Owen Hart. In the post-match, Sunny abandoned the Gunns for losing the belts.
4/10 The breakout fight
An all-out feud ensued between Billy Gunn and Bart Gunn, beginning with Billy walking out in the middle of a tag team match on a late October 1996 episode of Super stars and then have an altercation at ringside in the next Raw.
Their first big meeting would be at the survival series 1996 pre-show in mid-November, competing on opposing teams. A month later, the two would compete in a brief one-on-one match at Rawwhich ends with Billy Gunn suffering a neck injury that sidelined him for a few months.
3/10 Had one last singles match
Billy Gunn and Bart Gunn never got to have their big one-on-one breakout match, but they did have one last singles match in WWE. In the spring of 1997, Billy Gunn returned to WWE television after his aforementioned injury, eventually winning The Honky Tonk Man as manager and being repackaged as “Rockabilly”.
After a few months, Rockabilly and Bart Gunn would meet in a singles match on an early June 1997 episode of Rawwith Rockabilly getting the win in what would be Bart Gunn’s last televised match for the company in nearly nine months.
2/10 Moved to new tag teams after splitting
By the fall of 1997, Rockabilly teamed up with another directionless, musically inclined singles wrestler, Jesse James, becoming “Badass” Billy Gunn and The Road Dogg, The New Age Outlaws. In the spring of 1998, Bart Gunn returned to WWE as Bodacious Bart, one half of a revived Midnight Express as part of an invasion of the NWA.
While the invasion story was ultimately forgettable, the two former partners ended up clashing in king of the ring ’98 when the Express failed to capture the WWE World Tag Team Championship from the Outlaws.
1/10 Billy tried to keep Bart out of the Brawl For All tournament.
Later in 1998, Bart Gunn would achieve infamy in WWE history by participating in Brawl For All, an ill-conceived tournament that featured half of the WWE card and below competing in legitimate shootouts.
According to Billy Gunn himself, he was fully aware that his former tag team partner was surprisingly formidable in a fight, and warned management backstage that Bart would likely win the tournament. Billy’s prediction came true, as Bart Gunn scored several surprise upsets, including one about “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, whom WWE expected to win Brawl For All.