The Rock hated his feud with current AEW star Billy Gunn
1999 was a big year for Billy Gunn's career, especially as a singles star. He won the King of the Ring that year and then went on to have a brief feud with The Rock. Unfortunately, it seemed like WWE lost confidence in Billy Gunn as someone who could possibly be a top singles star after this feud and the current AEW star never reached that level again.
Bruce Prichard seemed to echo these thoughts on his podcast, Something To Wrestle. Prichard revealed that The Rock hate his feud with Billy Gunn. Prichard put Gunn over as one of the best natural athletes he has seen but admitted that the feud probably came at a bad time for him:
Rock hated it. There’s no other way to explain it. The Rock hated it. He saw it as not as a demotion, but ‘OK, I’m the guy that’s gotta get this guy over?’ And not like I’m over, put me on top. And instead, I’m put in the role of trying to get this guy over. And I don’t know that Rock really had the confidence in Billy. This was at the time we were looking to get a singles run out of Billy and see what the hell he had. He was away from the tag team with Road Dogg and was on his own – let’s see what he can do. This just didn’t work. I don’t know if it was being a tag team guy that there’s a different cardio level for tag team guys – and I say that about one of the most natural athletes ever in the business in Billy Gunn. But I don’t know that his pacing and time was right for singles run. That sounds weird, but it just wasn’t. H/T: 411Mania
Bruche Prichard on The Rock and Billy Gunn's SummerSlam 1999 match
Billy Gunn ended up facing The Rock in a 'Kiss My A**' match at WWE SummerSlam 1999, which the current AEW star lost. Prichard said that the match just didn't work and played a part in Billy Gunn losing his push as a singles star. He added that Gunn would have had more chance of being successful if he had feuded with someone other than The Rock at that stage of his singles push.
You can listen to Something To Wrestle HERE.