Billy Gunn & Ron Simmons

News came out of the WWE this week that two of it's longest serving employees could be about to hang up their wrestling tights for the last time.

It's been rumoured that Ron Simmons, aka Faarooq in his many guises, has been considering retiring for some months now. He hasn't been on our screens much lately because of family considerations, but since the split of the APA, he hasn't really done much. He's teamed briefly with Mark Henry and D-Von Dudley, but as far as direction goes, nothing has really been done with his character since the brand extension.

As for his overall career, Simmons will probably be remembered for two things, the first being his WCW World title reign. It was notable because he was the first African-American ever to hold a world title in any promotion. Although his reign didn't exactly set hearts on fire, he was probably one of the most dignified world champions you could find.

Then there's his first few months in the WWF. First, he was saddled with an awful Roman gladiator-type gimmick, something that did nothing for a wrestler of his standing. Things got a little better when he shed the stupid costume and formed the Nation of Domination. Although the race angle sometimes made for uneasy viewing, it propelled Simmons to the top of the card, including a pay-per-view main event outing against then-WWF champion The Undertaker.

His career seemed to go downhill a little when he was replaced as Nation leader by The Rock, but by then the Rock's character was on the rise, so this was a natural step for him. Simmons, despite an initial feud with his former team-mates that also involved Ken Shamrock and Steve Blackman, got lost in the mix again, become just another face in the crowd.

This all changed when The Undertaker formed his Ministry of Darkness, and Simmons teamed with fellow nobody Bradshaw, who himself was getting lost in the crowd after briefly teaming with Terry Funk. As the Acolytes, Bradshaw and Simmons became the Undertaker's enforcers, as well as holding the tag-team championship. When the Ministry angle came to an end, many thought the team would as well. The Acolytes name, although it no longer fitted, continued to be used until the creative team came up with a new twist on their characters. With beer swilling anti-heroes gaining tons of cheers, the Acolytes morphed into the APA, a muscles for hire outfit who like nothing more than to down a few beers while smoking a few cigars and playing a few games of poker. With tongues planted firmly in cheek, the APA became one of the most popular teams of their day.

The APA split before the brand extension. Bradshaw ended up on Raw, where he became Hardcore champion before injury put him on the shelf, and Simmons ended up on Smackdown, where, once again, he got lost in the crowd. Family problems took him away from wrestling for a while, where it is thought that he took the time to consider his future carefully. In his forties, time was slowly catching up to him.

The other name mentioned this week as far as retirement goes was Billy Gunn, currently suffering from the second serious shoulder injury he has suffered in recent years.

Billy began his WWF career years ago with his "brother" Bart as the Smoking Gunns. This was towards the end of the so-called gimmick era. Billy and Bart came to the ring dressed as cowboys, firing fake revolvers into the air to the cheers of the crowd. They enjoyed great success in the tag-team ranks, especially as heels, when Tammy "Sunny" Sytch became their manager. This was at the time when Sunny joined any team that held championship gold, even when the Godwins held the titles.

When the Gunns split up there was the obligatory feud between the story lined brothers, which didn't seem to amount to much. Bart seemed to disappear from view as Billy enjoyed the spotlight.

Then the Honkytonk Man returned to the WWF, looking for a protégé that could continue his musical legacy. Having been turned down by the real Double J, Jesse James, HTM took Billy Gunn under his wing, and the former cowboy morphed into Rock-a-billy, and feuded with James, which included a couple of pay-per-view matches.

But at the time, the WWF was taking a pasting in the ratings. WCW were beating them in every department, and the WWF realised that childish gimmicks would no longer cut it in the wrestling industry. Billy soon turned on his mentor and teamed with his enemy. Rock-a-billy and Jesse James became the Bad Ass Billy Gunn and the Road Dogg. A short time later Jim Ross christened them The New Age Outlaws, and one of the greatest tag-teams in WWF history was born.

The team initially feuded with Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie, another stupid gimmick that was given to Terry Funk. The feud was tremendous, and involved the Outlaws interfering in a Cactus-Charlie hardcore match. In a memorable moment that outraged everyone in the locker room (from a storyline point of view, anyway), the Bad Ass and the Road Dogg sealed Cactus and Charlie in a dumpster and pushed them off the Raw stage. The dumpster crashed "fifteen to twenty feet" to the floor below, and Cactus and Charlie were taken to hospital, only for them to show great intestinal fortitude and return to the arena before Raw finished. With their underwear showing under their hospital gowns, Cactus and Charlie kicked the crap out of the Outlaws.

A dumpster match at the following Wrestlemania for the tag-team championship saw Cactus and Charlie emerge victorious. But the following night, because of a technicality (the Outlaws had been dumped in the wrong dumpster), the titles were held up and put on the line in a cage match the following night on Raw in a cage match.

This Raw was to mark another turning point in the careers of the Outlaws. Triple H had taken over as leader of D-Generation X, and having recruited X-Pac, the rest of the night was spent wondering who his next recruits would be. The answer was simple, as Triple H and X-Pac helped the Outlaws defeat Cactus and Charlie for the gold.

As members of D-Generation X, the Outlaws enjoyed their greatest success, especially as faces during the team's war with The Rock and his Nation faction. Their famed entrance let their fans bond with the team as they also followed their famous lines. I don't think I need to repeat what they said here.

After numerous championship runs, Billy and the Road Dogg enjoyed semi-successful runs as singles wrestlers, each holding the Intercontinental and Hardcore championships. Then, as Triple H left DX to side with Vince McMahon's corporate team, the remaining DX members drifted apart, which of course led to the inevitable feud between the tag-team partners.

The WWF tried to push Billy as a bona fide singles star. Renaming him Mr. Ass, a King of the Ring tournament victory, and feud with The Rock, soon followed, but for some reason, the singles push just didn't spark. The fans just didn't take Billy as a serious singles star, probably because he had been so successful in the tag-team ranks.

Then came one of the many times when the tag-team division became stale again. New teams were nowhere to be seen, so the WWF once again paired Billy and the Road Dogg again, and in their first match back together, they won championship gold once again. It wasn't long before DX was back together again, this time with X-Pac's "girlfriend" Tori, Stephanie McMahon, and later, her father Vince, added to the side as well.

Once again the Outlaws dominated the tag-team division, as slowly, the division began to build up again. However, a shoulder injury suffered in a tag-team title loss to the Dudleys on pay-per-view sidelined Billy, and X-Pac replaced him as the Road Dogg's partner. Good as they were, X-Pac and the Road Dogg just weren't as good as the Outlaws.

Taking several months off to heal his injury, Billy returned not long after another long-term injury victim, Steve Austin did. Austin was looking for the man who had run him over at the 1999 Survivor Series, almost costing him his career. For a while, Billy, who was the only DX member not seen in the segment, was the prime suspect. Billy returned to television, and pleaded his innocence. Austin believed him.

Then came another push as a singles wrestler. First came a feud with Steven Richards and the Right To Censor, in which he lost the right to call himself Mr. Ass. Now calling himself "The One", Billy defeated Eddie Guerrero to become Intercontinental Champion, but despite the fact that he was now a bona fide singles champion again, and supposedly the number two singles wrestler in the company, the fans, once again, just didn't seem to take him seriously as a singles wrestler. It wasn't long before he dropped the title to Chris Benoit, and returned to what he did best, tag-team wrestling.

Billy found a new partner in Chuck Palumbo, a man who had achieved tag-team success in WCW. At first this was just another nondescript team with no gimmick, just two wrestlers looking for their niche. They soon found it with a gimmick Lenny and Lodi failed with in WCW, because their creative team were too afraid to run with the ball.

Billy and Chuck soon gained tag-team gold, once again at a time when the tag-team division was somewhat threadbare. With their "stylist" Rico, they posed, they preened, and made everyone, despite the fact that Billy was in fact a married man, think that they batted for the other side. The angle convinced, and probably enraged, many fans. Wherever you went to on the Internet you would hear how fans hated Billy and Chuck, which meant, as heels, they were doing their job, and doing it well.

The angle eventually led them to the same-sex wedding on Smackdown last year. The event, or rather, non-event garnered a great deal of mainstream publicity as such a thing had never been seen on a wrestling programme before. Of course, it was all part of an "inter-promotional" angle between the Raw and Smackdown brands, as Eric Bischoff, Rosey and Jamal gatecrashed the wedding, with Rico's help, and obliterated Billy and Chuck. A few weeks later 3 Minute Warning won the obligatory match on pay-per-view.

Now firmly entrenched in the fan favourite ranks, Billy and Chuck, slowly losing their blonde locks, entered the tournament to find new Smackdown tag-team champions. They didn't even make it past the first round. Shortly afterwards, Billy suffered his shoulder injury, and Chuck, despite making great strides since his WWF/E debut in 2001, became just another face in the crowd, making regular appearances on Velocity, and the odd appearance on Smackdown.

When it was announced earlier this week that both Billy Gunn and Ron Simmons may be retiring from wrestling, many Internet fans said that this was good for the industry. While I admit that I have never really been big fans of either man, I just can't understand this way of thinking? Both of these men, in their own way, achieved a lot in the wrestling industry. Any man making their start in wrestling would be proud to have had the careers that these two have had, and I think it's a shame that the majority of wrestling fans seem to think this way.

Billy Gunn and Ron Simmons have given us years of enjoyment and entertainment in an industry that both men love. Instead of being ridiculed or insulted, they should be praised for their achievements, for the years of hard work they put in. In this writer's humble opinion, the wrestling world will be just a little poorer without them.