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Peter Alan Gruner Jr. (born May 11, 1974) is a retired American {{Professional Wrestl|ing}}er from Allentown, PA best known for his work in Wrestling/{{WCW}} and Wrestling/{{WWE}} as '''Billy Kidman''' or '''Kidman'''. He debuted in 1994 and first competed under the name '''Kid Flash.''' He formed a tag team with Ace Darling called the Shooting Stars, and they competed in various promotions, winning the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/us/de/ecwa/ecwa-t.html ECWA (Delaware) Tag Team Titles]] and the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/us/tn/uswa/uswa-t.html USWA World Tag Team Titles]]. He debuted in WCW in 1996 and spent his first year as a {{Jobber}}. He got his first storyline when he climbed the guardrail and joined Wrestling/{{Raven}}'s Flock on the October 13, 1997 ''Wrestling/WCWMondayNitro''. [[HeelFaceTurn He turned face]] during the Raven-Wrestling/PerrySaturn match at ''WCW Fall Brawl 98'', September 13, 1998, and, the following night on ''Nitro'', defeated Juventud Guerrera to win his first [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wwe/wwe-c.html WCW World Cruiserweight Title]]. He would hold the title 2 more times in WCW, along with holding the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wcw/wcw-t.html WCW World Tag Team Titles]] twice, 1x w[=/=]Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr and 1x w[=/=]Wrestling/{{Konnan}}, and he and Rey would defeat Wrestling/ElixSkipper and Kid Romeo to be the second, and final, [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wcw/wcw-c-t.html WCW World Cruiserweight Tag Team Champions]]. When WWE bought WCW, Kidman was brought in as part of the [=InVasion=][=/=]Alliance angle. During his WWE run, he would have four more reigns as Cruiserweight Champion and one run with the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wwe/wwe-t.html WWE [=SmackDown!=] Tag Team Title]] with [[Wrestling/LondonAndKendrick Paul London]]. WWE released him in 2005 and he toured the independents before returning in 2010 to work as a trainer. He was inducted into the ECWA Hall of Fame in 2004.
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!! "You can't powerbomb Kidman's tropes!":
* AddledAddict: When Kidman first joined the Flock, he was heavily implied through his un-hygenic-looking attire and constant scratching to be addicted to heroin. Hell, his Shooting Star Press was temporarily renamed the Seven Year Itch. Kidman actually hated playing this character and eventually talked the WCW bookers into letting him play a cleaner, more typical grunge-inspired character, much to the annoyance of Wrestling/{{Raven}}, who liked the addict character.
* ArchEnemy: A couple.
** In WCW, Wrestling/HulkHogan. At the time Kidman was a white-hot upper midcarder until his feud with Hulk, and the Hulkster's reluctance to sell for a cruiserweight, cooled him off significantly.
** He never really got pushed in WWF/E. His most significant feud there was with Wrestling/{{Chavo Guerrero|Jr}} after accidentally injuring him with a Shooting Star Press.
* AscendedMeme: At the start of the Wrestling/ColtCabana-Grado [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n3ZxvTBv2g match]] at ''AIW Bloodsport'', September 9, 2016, Colt tried for a German Suplex and the commentator said, "You can't German Suplex Grado. It's like trying to powerbomb Billy Kidman."
* EpicFail: The first time he tried to use the shooting star press in a match he landed in the same spot he jumped from. Specifically, he was trying to duplicate a move he saw Wrestling/JushinThunderLiger do. After that did not work he tucked his legs in and the shooting star press as we know it came about.
** He also had an example or two around late 2002 and early 2003 after putting on a significant amount of muscle mass, it took him a while to relearn how the physics of getting himself around worked with another 60 pounds or so on his body, and nearly landed on his head a few times.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: After Raven gave Scotty Riggs a drop toe-hold onto a chair, (kayfabe) injuring Riggs' eye, Kidman got in the ring and pleaded with Raven to stop hurting Riggs.
* EvilCostumeSwitch: In WWE. From white trunks to half-white/half-black trunks to black trunks.
* FaceHeelTurn:
** In WCW he was a face jobber-to-the-stars known for having one of the coolest finishers in the game. Then he joined the Flock, for reasons that were never explored beyond 'Raven got into his head somehow.'
** Turned {{Heel}} in WWE after a botched Shooting Star Press that resulted in severe concussion for Chavo Guerrero.
* FinishingMove: Shooting Star Press, Kid Krusher [[note]]Sometimes it was an inverted Pedigree with Kidman facing the same direction as the opponent, sometimes it was the same move as Christian's Killswitch[[/note]], BK Bomb[[note]]spine bomb - same as D-Lo Brown's Sky High[[/note]]
* FragileSpeedster: In WWE, as it was adverse to pushing him most of the time, leading to Kidman getting put away in anticlimactic fashions after dazzling audiences his quickness and athletics and his tag team with [[Wrestling/LondonAndKendrick Paul London]], which again wasn't pushed for most of its existence.
* HeelFaceTurn: While Wrestling/PerrySaturn was trying to convince The Flock to abandon Raven, Kidman was the one who finally took it to heart, interfering against Raven in the match between Raven and Saturn for The Flock's freedom, and then leading the rest of the Flock away on a chase so that Saturn could win the match.
* InASingleBound: He could hit a running Shooting Star Press over the ropes to the floor.
* LastNameBasis: During, and for a while after, his tenure in The Flock.
* LimitedWardrobe: When he first joined the Flock, he wore nothing but dirty jean shorts and a dirty ankh t-shirt. He did in fact switch the t-shirt for a white beater and began washing his jean shorts, but he just replaced one look with another.
* PowerStable:
** (in WCW): Raven's Flock, the Filthy Animals and the New Blood
** (in WWE): The Alliance
* RedOniBlueOni: Blue to Paul London's red. Putting a stop to London's Warlord dashes was the first order of business when Kidman realized they would be tagging.
* TheRunaway: In Bruce Mitchell's 1998 column about what he saw as the gay elements of Raven's Flock (see the Ho Yay entry on Raven's YMMV page), he wrote, "Billy Kidman has got the Bus Station Runaway look down cold."
* SchmuckBait: One of his signature moves was countering a powerbomb with a facebuster – even against opponents who never usually went for powerbombs! It got to the point where the move's unofficial name became "YOU CAN'T POWERBOMB KIDMAN."
* SignatureMove: The BK Bomb, although occasionally used as a finisher, was more often used to set up the Shooting Star Press.
* TagTeam: The Shooting Stars
* ThrowTheDogABone: He was one of the wrestlers whose matches were rigged on WCW.com to count for Hogan's when fans voted them best of the night on their polls. Hogan then claimed that Kidman couldn't draw, based on his poor performance in the voting. The first thing Wrestling/VinceRusso and Wrestling/EricBischoff did as bookers was have Kidman beat Hogan.
* {{Troll}}: When WCW decided to try and make him an anti-hero, he became this. He started by dancing around behind Wrestling/LanceStorm and making faces while the Canadian national anthem played. Then, while affiliated with the Filthy Animals, he carried a camcorder - er, The Kid-corder - around and used it to cause trouble. Even though sometimes his targets were heels, some of them were faces, and he never seemed to have any reason for doing it besides [[ItAmusedMe it amused him]].
* UnderwearOfPower: During his WWE run, except for when he wore pants on Velocity.
* UrExample: He actually was using the running-up-the-turnbuckles bulldog ''before'' [[Wrestling/SpikeDudley Little Spike Dudley]] started using it in ECW. However, because Spike's version was actually named (the Acid Drop), once Kidman started getting a push, people thought that Kidman was doing Spike's move.
* VillainSong: "You Can Run," but then the Invasion was over and Billy Kidman was a babyface... until he injured Chavo Guerrero with the Shooting Star Press and refused to do it, until fans asked for it and he purposefully set out to injure people with the move.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: With Paul London, that he turned on in the wake of injuring Chavo.
* WhiteGangBangers: Was the only white guy in the otherwise entirely Latino-gangster stable The Filthy Animals.
* WouldHitAGirl: He gave Wrestling/JackieGayda the BK Bomb on the October 7, 2004 ''[=SmackDown!=]''.
* WrestlingFamily: Ex-husband to Wrestling/TorrieWilson. His cousin is Mikey Batts, who competed in the Florida independent scene as well as for [=TNA=], OVW and some other promotions.
* YouCanRunButYouCantHide: As mentioned above, his most notable WWE theme was titled "You Can Run."