Article: Kevin Owens speaks to the Toronto Sun on when WWE deal expires, future and more
Kevin Owens remains humble despite earning WWE superstar status
Article: Toronto Sun
Relatively early in his tenure with World Wrestling Entertainment, Kevin Owens renamed WrestleMania to KO Mania, while simultaneously releasing a T-shirt each time he appeared on the grandest stage of them all.
Owens, a Quebec native and one of the top stars in WWE in recent years, has become something of a modern-day Mr. WrestleMania.
In 2021, Owens faced his idol, Stone Cold Steve Austin, nearly two decades after Austin retired from the business — a testament to Austin’s belief in Owens. Then, this past April, Owens teamed with his lifelong friend and fellow Quebec native Sami Zayn to become tag-team champions in the main event of WrestleMania as part of one of the greatest storylines in WWE history.
KO Mania, indeed.
For his part, Owens remained humble when he discusses both of those WrestleMania moments.
“I talk about those moments a lot because I get asked about them a lot,” Owens said in a telephone interview. “And every single time I say the same thing and it sounds kind of redundant, but I just can’t put that into words what those two nights meant to me, the Stone Cold one especially.
“As far as saying that Sami and I would win our first WWE tag team titles in the main event of WrestleMania, I guess that was still somewhat of a fleeting possibility through the years, but Stone Cold coming back after 19 years, nobody would have called that. I feel like there is a threshold or something like that where once somebody’s been retired for long enough, you think, ‘OK, they’re really never coming back.’ I think 19 years is well past that point.”
Practically every year since he had his final WrestleMania match vs. The Rock at WrestleMania 19, fans have clamoured for one more match from Austin. Yet year in and year out, it would not be. That is, until the prospect of facing Owens was presented.
“He did it,” Owens said proudly of Austin returning for one more Mania match. “He did it and he killed it and I was, somehow, some way, lucky enough to be the one he did it with. I don’t know what I did to get there and I don’t know what I did to deserve that, but I’m very happy it was me and I’m just so grateful I got to do that with my family in the crowd and I got to share that with them and everybody in that stadium.
“As special as that moment was for the people watching it, it was special for me, a diehard Stone Cold fan my entire life. He was my favourite.”
Owens touched on his time as a fan of wrestling, before he got into the business, and the influences of Austin, Shawn Michaels, fellow Canadian Trish Stratus and Steve Corino.
“They were my top four or five,” Owens reflected. “And now to get to be in the ring with them, to get to be around Shawn as he helps with NXT and he helps backstage, to have access to him once in a while, that’s amazing. Trish is back now every week on Raw, we get to see her perform and get to share locker rooms with her and hear her wisdom and benefit from her experience.
“And, as far as Steve Corino, he was my mentor for a long time and still is. I got to wrestle him, got the team with him, to travel with him. I got to literally be involved with every single one of my idols and that’s incredible.”
But Stone Cold, he added, that was next level.
“To have been in the ring with Stone Cold Steve Austin,” he added, “to get to wrestle Stone Cold in the main event of WrestleMania, when I just put into perspective what these people meant to me to get to today and get to see them, that I get to do this with them and like I said, Stone Cold, 19 years after his last match, back in the ring with me: How do you put that into words?”
A year later, Owens got to enjoy another magical KO Mania moment, when he teamed with his lifelong friend Zayn to face the Usos in the main event of WrestleMania 39, winning the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships.
That magical night came just weeks after Owens was left off of the Elimination Chamber event in Montreal, a snub he admitted that didn’t sit well with him at the time.
“I wasn’t on that show and that hurt,” Owens said. “I’ve got to be honest with you … a sold-out pay-per-view in my hometown. To be quite honest, I think I was pretty instrumental in bringing it there because right after we did Raw and Smackdown (in Montreal), I kept telling them we need a pay-per-view there, we need a pay-per-view there and they finally do it and I’m not even on the show. That sucked.
“I’m not going to mince my words, that sucked and I was upset about it. But what can you do? I did get to show up in the end there a little bit, but by that point, it was nothing, it was meaningless. But to see Sami get that moment, to see Sami get that reaction, to see Sami get something he deserved for so long, that really made that a lot easier to swallow. And it’s all a credit to him.”
The WrestleMania match featuring Zayn and Owens was part of the Bloodline storyline, an arc that had been building between the Usos, Undisputed WWE Universal champion Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa, Zayn and Owens for months. Owens heaped praise on the talent who brought that storyline to life.
“That whole story, everybody talks about it as something incredibly special and it certainly is, the story is great, but it wouldn’t have been as great if it wasn’t for the players and the players being great,” he said. “Man, Sami Zayn and the Usos and Roman and Solo and Paul Heyman and everybody involved in that story, fantastic players, fantastic performers.
“I don’t know how to put it, people have known how good Roman Reigns is for a long time, but it was great to see them all open their eyes to how amazing Sami Zayn and the Usos are. Those are three guys who didn’t get their flowers for way too long, and now they’re getting them.”
How long it took his friends to get their moments isn’t lost on Owens, who said he feels very fortunate to have gotten the opportunities he has had from the get-go in his WWE career.
“I got lucky,” Owen said. “I came in in 2015 (and worked with) John Cena right from the get-go. A year later, I was Universal Champion, I was always involved in some pretty good things, titles here and there, always on TV doing something.
“I’ve been blessed my entire career with some very special moments, but those guys, man, they claw, they scratch, they work hard and sometimes they’re pushed to the back of the line, put on the back burner, and it was never for a lack of passion, never for a lack of work ethic. But finally, the last two years to see them all get what they deserve, that’s very, very, very great. It’s just so great.”
WWE is headed back to Canada in August, with several dates across all parts of the country. And while Owens’ hometown is in Quebec, wrestlers from Canada enjoy a home-country advantage when WWE comes north, he said.
“I’ve tried to explain this to other wrestlers, I’ve tried to explain it to management even and they don’t really quite grasp it, but if you go to the U.S. and you’re in whatever state — let’s say you’re in Minneapolis and there’s somebody from Minnesota — fans react to the hometown guy and they get a good reaction, but it’s not like Canada.
“In Canada, if you’re from Quebec, you’re from Ontario, you’re from Manitoba … it doesn’t matter. You show up anywhere in Canada, whether it be in B.C. or Saskatchewan or anywhere, the crowd will go nuts like you’re a hometown guy. We’re just like one big hometown. And if you watch the shows, you feel that. Me and Sami got amazing receptions in Montreal, but we got them In Ottawa, we got them in Winnipeg, we got them in Calgary. We get them in Vancouver, we get them everywhere. And it’s not just us, any Canadian. It’s unlike anything else.
“The closest I could compare it to is when we’ve gone to Japan and I’ve seen people react to Shinsuke Nakamura over there. It’s the same kind of thing. He might not be from that town, but when he shows up in Japan, he’s from everywhere and that’s the coolest. That’s the coolest feeling. It’s just so great. Going back to Canada is always so exciting for us because of that.”
With just a year and half left on his current contract and having fulfilled all of those KO Mania moments, championship dreams and bucket list achievements, Owens was asked what’s left for him.
“That’s a great question,” he said. “I really don’t know. I used to say I don’t see myself not being in the ring for another five to 10 years. And if I said it right now, I’d be lying because over the last few months, I have to admit, I don’t know if that’s true anymore.
“I look at things and I don’t know where I stand going beyond the next year and a half. I know I want to be involved in wrestling. I know I want to be involved in the WWE and I know I have a place here. I just don’t know where it is exactly. Maybe it’s still in the ring, maybe it’s not. I don’t know.”
What he does know is that he won’t let the unknown distract him from the known, which is that he has another year and a half to entertain the masses.
“I think for the next year and a half, my focus is just on enjoying everything I do as much as possible,” he said. “There’s not really a worry about winning a title or main-eventing WrestleMania or any of that stuff anymore, which are the dreams that everybody has because I’ve been so blessed and I’ve gotten to do all of that. So I just want to have fun and I want to give people fun times to remember me by.
“Whether this is the end for my wrestling, I don’t know and I don’t want to sound dramatic, I don’t want to say this is a retirement speech or anything because I might still be wrestling for 10 years. I have no idea. My thought process right now is just to try to enjoy the next year and a half as much as I possibly can because I don’t know what’s on the other side. That’s really all I’m worrying about.”
In the meantime, fans can keep enjoying those KO Mania moments.
