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Photo Credit: Edward-Daniel Simons / @deadlumens

KiLynn King Built A Foundation, Found Confidence Training With The Dudleys And Billy Gunn

KiLynn King has been an absolute tear during her current run in the National Wrestling Alliance and the independent circuit.

King recently challenged NWA Women’s Champion Kamille at Alwayz Ready, impressing in her performance despite suffering a loss. In that pursuit, KiLynn rivaled her former fellow 3D Academy graduate. King and Kamille are both proud graduates, training under the likes of D-Von and Bubba Ray Dudley. Additionally, King has trained under Billy Gun as well. In speaking with WrestleZone’s Bill Pritchard, KiLynn King went into great detail about her time training under the Dudleys and Billy Gunn:

“So shortly after I started training there, D-Von started working for the WWE again behind the scenes and stuff like that. So we would get them in little doses at a time. But I think with D-Von, He was really adamant about the work ethic, really preaching that into us. And then when he was there, he would put us through drills. He would give us really, really basic spots because he wanted to make sure that the flow of it was really crisp, that just the littlest things were legitimate-looking,” King explained.

“I feel like when Bubba was there, it was almost like he was trying to make sure that there was intensity in us at all times, because if you watch Bubba’s work, he doesn’t do a crazy ton of stuff.” she continued. “But what he does do is always, just, you feel it. It’s intense. You can feel the pain that he’s causing his opponents. So I guess if I had to break it down, D-Von worked on us with the structure of things and then Bubba really brought the intensity out in us. When I when I first met Bubba, he was a lot more involved with Ring Of Honor at the time, so when we got to see him like once or twice a month. But when he was there, he would just bring so much out in me.”

“Billy was kind of similar where he wouldn’t go through all this stuff and teach us all this crazy stuff. But he would break down the basics and make sure that what we did was intense and it looked good and that we had just a lot of power behind the things that we did. Billy too, he had a really great way because, no matter what sport or kind of thing that you get into, you’re going to have a bunch of different people that you learn from at some point. And sometimes, no matter how great the coaches are, there’s always somebody who speaks to you in a certain way that your brain just computes it, you know what I’m saying?”

King noted that by the time she moved on to train with Gunn, she’d learned quite a bit under the tutelage of D-Von, Bubba and Jon Cruz [aka Serpentico]. King praised Gunn for his approach and how he helped her understand things in a new way, also noting how he taught her how to pace herself and put it all together in the ring.

“But he was really able to be like, ‘Hey, this is how you keep your chill in the ring is how you keep it going no matter what happens’. He was very, very good at bringing that fight out of me performance-wise. So no matter who I stepped in the ring with, whether they were more experienced than me or less experienced than me, I could handle myself. And so that was what each person kind of did for me individually. But like all together, it was just like every part of the learning experience that you needed.”

“I think the way they each taught me just slowly but surely brought confidence out in me. I wasn’t always the most confident and strong person. But I think the way they each broke it down for me individually over time as my learning experience was growing and building, it was the correct layers that I needed to go through in order to find myself in the ring and find my confidence and own myself in that ring, if that makes any kind of sense.”

Despite the loss to Kamille at NWA Alwayz Ready, KiLynn King currently holds two titles, the Capital Championship Wrestling title and Coastal Championship Wrestling Women’s Championship.

RELATED: KiLynn King: Thunder Rosa Taught Me About The Dedication It Takes To Succeed In Wrestling

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