Kevin Owens feels his rivalry with Roman Reigns has helped him accomplish his goal of re-establishing himself as a headlining performer.
Kevin Owens skyrocketed to the top of WWE like no independent wrestling standout before him. Arriving at NXT in December of 2014, Kevin Owens was already WWE NXT Champion by February of 2015, and by the summer of that year, he was already engaged in a rivalry with John Cena.
A year removed from that, Kevin Owens had already defended the WWE Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania and was given the opportunity to be the first WWE Universal Champion to have an actual run with the championship after Finn Balor was forced to vacate the title 24-hours after becoming the inaugural champion.
Kevin Owens would keep that title throughout a rivalry with Roman Reigns before losing it to Goldberg at WWE Fastlane in 2017. Since then, Kevin Owens was never able to recapture a World Championship and would fluctuate up and down the card for the next few years.
Now, as a babyface, Kevin Owens is once again in a rivalry with Roman Reigns over the WWE Universal Championship and Kevin tells Ryan Satin of FOX Sports that he feels like this rivalry was able to help him deliver one of those special performances that put him back into focus in the race to the top that is often the WWE experience.
“Well, in a way I don’t feel like I ever really had to show it to people because I think people know by now. But, the nature of our industry and the way things work, and the amount of very talented people we have on the roster, just makes for an environment where you constantly have to prove your worth day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, right?”
Kevin Owens continued, “It’s almost like people in the industry or the company take things for granted. Like, I think after all the years I’ve put in – and I’m one of many, I’m not saying this just about myself – but, there are guys where when the shows go on the people in charge just know, "Oh, they’re going to have a good match.
"They take it for granted because they know it’s going to be a good match or they’re going to be able to tell this story great, or they’re going to be able to deliver this promo great. But, it becomes almost like it’s expected of us because it’s what we do. So, then it’s like, ‘Of course they had a good match.’ It’s like, not special, almost. So, once in a while, you have to have these special performances that are a bit above what you usually deliver even if what you usually deliver is good, – and like I said, we have a ton of men and women who do it on a weekly basis – but, once in a while, you just need this one performance to make people take notice again. Like, ‘Oh, you know, he is really good,’ or, ‘Oh, we could do something with this.’ So, obviously, this story with Roman was a big opportunity for me to do that again.”
As it stands right now, the Rivalry between Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns is not finished yet. Owens hit Roman Reigns with a Stunner on the February 5 episode of SmackDown while Roman was in the middle of a confrontation with Edge.
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