When Kevin Owens first came onto the scene in WWE a lot of fans didn’t know who he was. The strong hardcore fans did, but the rest of them didn’t understand who he was and why he was getting pushed onto the main roster. I’ve wrote this piece to explain just how Kevin Owens got into the main event and how his Fight Owens Fight attitude is one of pride and not ignorance.
Owens first developed an interest in professional wrestling after watching the epic encounter between Shawn Michaels and Diesel at Wrestlemania XI at the young age of 11. Moving on three years later, Owens begged his parents to let him start training with a wrestler based in Quebec called Serge Jodoin. At the age of 16 Owens got his first match in L’Assomption, Quebec on May 7, 2000 before wrestling across several Canadian promotions, including the International Wrestling Syndicate.
Moving on to September 10, 2004 where Owens made his debut in Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW), and in August of 2005 he won his first ever championship by pinning Franky The Mobster to claim the CZW Iron Man Championship title. As well as wrestling for CZW, Owens also started wrestling for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) in 2005. This is one of the first encounters of Kevin Owens facing A.J. Styles leading to Owens beating A.J. for the PWG Championship on August 6, 2005.
Owens held the title for an impressive four months before losing to Joey Ryan at the Chaukah Chaos PPV. Adding the PWG World Ta Team Championship to his growing accolades, Owens would continue to wrestle for both PWG and Ring of Honor (ROH) but Owens decided to work for ROH exclusively due to the money and exposure.
On September 19, 2009 Owens and El Generico beat The Age of the Fall to capture his first ROH title becoming the ROH World Tag Team Champions. Owens would get this chance to shine at ROH’s PPV Final Battle 2009. This PPV would be the first event to be shown live for the company and resulted in Owens turning heel by attacking his then tag team partner El Generico.
This led to a yearlong feud between the two, ending at the PPV Final Battle 2010, in which Owens put his ROH career on the line against El Generico’s mask. Owens lost the match and was forced out of ROH but the Wrestler Observer Newsletter voted the feud as the best of the year.
The real reason behind Kevin Owens leaving Ring of Honor was due to budget concerns. What is fascinating about Kevin Owens is that he wrote most of the El Generico rivalry storyline himself, and blamed his poor relationship with then booker Jim Cornette, as the reason his frustration with company grew. Even though Owens was pulled out of the ROH events, ROH President Cary Silkin continued to pay him every month. Owens used the time off to lose 40lbs, but due to Cornette keeping him off the cards Owens would gain a weight of 291 lb due to being unhappy.
Owens returned to ROH after signing a new contact and made his return on June 26, 2011, at the Best in the World 2011 PPV. During a storyline Owens was dragged from the arena after Jim Cornette screamed he would never wrestle for the promotion again. Cornette’s idea was to introduce Kevin Owens as a rehab wrestler, which Owens swiftly turned down. Owens popularity proved hurtful to the storyline because even though he was marked as a heel, his popularity made it so that Cornette became the bad guy.
Moving on and on May 12, 2012, Owens beat Davey Richards for the ROH World Championship and became the first Canadian to hold the title. Owens would be involved in amazing story lines over the next year, involving a particular one where Kevin Owens would spit at Jay Lethals parents during an ongoing feud. This led to July 19, 2014, where Kevin Owens had his final ROH match, defeating Steve Corino and saying goodbye to the company.
On August 12, 2014, WWE made the official announcement of the signing of Kevin Owens. Owens was sent directly to NXT on August 25, and NXT started showing promotional videos from November 20 hyping his debut. In the videos Owens made the point of wrestling for 14 years before being signed to WWE, and that many of his friends had been signed before him. Owens stated that now he was here he would fight anyone and everyone, because fighting was the best way to provide for his family.
Owens would make his highly anticipated debut at NXT TakeOver: R Evolution in a special live episode on December 11. Owens defeated CJ Parker and suffered a legitimate broken nose due to a palm strike from Parker. Later that night Owens would come to the ring to celebrate with Sami Zayn (formerly El Generico) when he won the NXT Championship. Despite congratulating Zayn, Owens showed his true self and powerbombed Zayne on the ring apron establishing himself as the top heel on the roster. Owens would continue to dominate the roster by defeating Adrian Neville (now Neville) and Zayne by powerbombing both on the apron. Owens was also involved in the debut of Samoa Joe in NXT which the crowd went insane for.
Due to a legit injury to Sami Zayne when facing John Cena, Owens would make his debut on Raw on May 18. Owens instantly got pushed to the main event roster by facing Cena after Owens pop-up powerbombed Cena during his debut. This led to an amazing debut match at Elimination Chamber, in which Owens would beat Cena clean by pinfall. This led to a rematch at Money in the Bank in which Cena would also win clean. After the match, Cena offered a handshake only for Owens to powerbomb Cena on the ring apron.
Owens then challenged Cena to a match for the United States title at Battleground. During this Owens would lose the NXT Championship on July 4, at a WWE Network Special, officially pushing him into the main event scene and away from NXT. During Battleground Cena made Owens submit to the STF ending the feud but proving that Owens would be here to stay.
After a long hard fight Owens was finally in the place his talent deserves. In a short time of being in WWE he’s been pushed ahead of some of the other top talents. It might have taken him a long time to get here but I’m sure he’s here to stay. Owens character can only continue to get stronger but only if WWE use him right. He can easily become the biggest heel in the company and needs to be kept that way. An appearance in The Authority could strengthen his character, or even forming a heel group of his own. Either way I’m looking forward to seeing how he develops and I’m sure you are too.
I hope you enjoyed this article and I look forward to writing more like this. I think to see the talent in front of you, you need to realise where they have come from. If you’d like to read more from me then contact SLTD Wrestling and give me a topic. Also why not join the predictions league and prove you know the most about wrestling for bragging rights.
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