Austin and Colten Gunn are far from a nostalgia act. The second-generation stars are the sons of WWE Hall of Famer Billy Gunn, and while they do subtly pay homage to their father in some ways, The Gunns have blossomed into their own. Much of that is thanks to Bullet Club Gold, AEW’s spin-off faction of the historic New Japan Pro Wrestling stable. The Gunns linked up with Jay White and Juice Robinson earlier this year and have donned the black and gold ever since. In a company inundated with factions, the bang bang gang have stood out amongst the rest thanks to their charisma, match quality, and perhaps most crucially, their branding.
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The Gunns Remastered DX’s Catchphrase For Bullet Club Gold
Among that branding includes a cornucopia of catchphrases. Top-shelf gunslingers. High-rolling with the bang bang gang. And if you’re not down with that, we got two words for ya: suck it guns up.
That prompt was made famous by Billy Gunn in D-Generation X. While crowds have been trained to respond one way, The Gunns have successfully remastered it in Bullet Club Gold’s image.
“The other catchphrase sucked and the guy who said it sucks,” Austin Gunn told ComicBook.com. “What the bang bang gang does is we take something that wasn’t cool and we make it cool, because we are actually cool. We don’t force it down people’s throats. We’re cool in general. We don’t have to prove it. We know we’re cool.”
Adding a fresh coat of paint is a recurring theme with Bullet Club Gold. Before this spin-off made its way to AEW, many fans felt the faction was on life support, as it had lost a significant amount of the magic it once had when stars like Finn Balor, AJ Styles, and Kenny Omega were leading it. The mainline Bullet Club in NJPW is currently in its biggest reset yet, with David Finlay leading multiple new recruits like Clark Connors, Gabe Kidd, and Alex Coughlin.
“The Bullet Club, you add ‘Gold’ to the end of it, now it’s cool because we’re in it,” Austin continued. “You take that catchphrase that sucked before, I’ll take it over from here kid. We just made it cool again. We’re taking everything that you give to us and we just make it cool. That’s it.”
AEW Dynamite returns tonight at 8 PM ET on TBS.