Featured Article: Billy Gunn
This article and the first two pictures were taken from the Orlando magazine from the November Issue. Although this is not the complete article, it is a start and when I do receive the magazine I will complete the article.
Is this really the
meanest man in Orlando?
By Jim Clark
Photo by RIKU
When Kip Sopp was growing up, he dreamed of being a rodeo star. But after
several futile years, he gave up the rodeo circuit and moved back home to
Oviedo, where he had been raised. Living in a doublewide with his father, Kip
became a construction day laborer, working primarily on posh hotels around Walt
Disney World.
The story might have ended there. Instead, Kip Sopp became Billy Gunn, an
internationally known superstar in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) who
earns at or near seven figures annually as one of pro wrestling’s most
loathed—and loved—heels.
At 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds, Kip certainly is an imposing figure—but there are
multitudes of muscle-bound behemoths vying to join the WWF. Today’s wrestlers,
however, need more than bulging biceps and a snaggle-toothed snarl to catch the
attention of impresarios such as Vince McMahon, the mad genius who termed
wrestling “sports entertainment” and took it from dingy high-school
gymnasiums to the biggest venues in the country. They need to be charismatic
performers who can sell a character, follow a plotline and, most important,
attract television viewers.
Kip, say wrestling enthusiasts, has it all: striking good looks, a flair for the
dramatic and an actor’s instinct for what will incite an audience. This
isn’t your father’s pro wrestling, when sweaty brawlers gouged, bit and
stomped one another as blue-collar—and no-collar—true believers hurled beer
cans into the ring. This is show business, and 37-year-old Kip Sopp, in his
genre, is as big a star as anyone on Friends or Frasier.
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