The Press Box - Ep. 207: 'The Masked Man Show' With Kevin Owens

Episode Date: November 16, 2016

The Ringer's David Shoemaker is joined by WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens to discuss how his life has changed since winning the title (2:45), traveling the indie circuit (7:48), connecting with the fans (22:45), his dream 'WrestleMania' opponents (39:30), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Today's episode of Channel 33 is brought to you by Seekek, the presenting sponsor for my podcast, as well as the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. With just two taps on your phone, you can instantly buy Seekkeek tickets to an event, and you can enter that event just using your phone. No paper tickets. Drop your old ticket app. Use one that's built for 2016.

Download the free SeatGeek app or go to Seekekek.com. And now without first, Further ado, here is the Masked Man, David. Shoemaker. Welcome to the Masked Man show. Today we got WWE Universal Champion, Kevin Owens on the show, brought to you by WWE 2K17. Go out and buy a copy now.

You can play Goldberg. You can play Brock Lesnar. But most importantly, you can play as this guy that we have on the line right now. Kevin Owens, thank you so much for being on the show, man. Congratulations the past year, but the past couple of months. have been incredible for you. How are you feeling? So my voice might be a little raspy. We just came back from a pretty grilling European tour,

but everything's going pretty good, as you said, I can't complain besides being a little sick here. What? The, you probably can't put into words the ways that your life has changed over the past year or so, but just specifically since you've been champion. I mean, you're headlining all across Europe for WWE now. Like, what is the, does it feel like an out-of-body experience, or is this, I mean, have you gotten used to it yet?

I mean, it's always going to be pretty surreal for me, even, you know, at this point I've been champion for a little over two months. I've made-cented, you know, WWE shows pretty much since the moment I came up on the main roster, or even if I started at next year, you know, it's old that you get used to it. Even, you know, after, like there's always moments, I catch by a couple of days, you know, looking back on the whole thing and thinking that I'm really a month of the WWU shows as a champion representing the company and champion, it's something that won't get lost on me for sure.

That's good to hear. On a human level, I mean, you traveled the world before you were part of WWE. What is the, well, for, you know, for the listeners out there, what's the difference between traveling the world as an indie wrestler and traveling and going through Europe as part of WWE? As an indie wrestler, you do everything on your own. You're on a flight by yourself, mostly.

You're selling your own merchandise. You're setting up your own bookings, obviously. You're doing everything. It's very necessary if you want to keep moving forward. And, you know, my goal was always to get to WWE. And I think I would say that's correct. That's the same goal of 95% of independent professionals. So, you know, traveling the world and getting your name out there as much as you can is crucial in achieving that goal.

eventually. Obviously, getting to travel the world with the WWE, you know, there's a couple, no, for one thing, with the whole roster for the entire time, you're on tour, and it's negative. You know, I get along with everyone on the roster. I'm closer with

another, you know, it's good for the field that you want to have on your roster, you know, traveling together, being on a bus together, being on a plane together. That's good for the roster itself, but I'm also a pretty, a lone wolf not to have Baron Corbyn come after me for stealing his nickname.

But, you know, I like being on my own sometimes, and that doesn't happen as much when you're on tour with, you know, 40 other people. So traveling the world with WWE itself and the fans are obviously crazy everywhere we go, and that's always cool to see. And, you know, it's just the one that is traveling as an independent wrestler,

but both are very fulfilling. and, you know, as a wrestler, you kind of have to look both. All right, I got to ask, since you were going there, let's just say you have one afternoon and you have to go, like, visit the Eiffel Tower in Paris. You get to take two of your comrades with you, two other wrestlers, who do you take and why? Big Gass is definitely one of them.

We travel pretty much everywhere together. We're pretty much always together. And the other one would be Finn Baller, because he's thought around so much lately, to do his injury, but, you know, they're the two top guys in my crew, if you will. You know, they're the guys on the closest. So, you know, there's a lot of other names I could say. All right, thanks, man.

You know, you talked about growing up a fan. I want to take a little bit of a quick trip through your career and your history. What was the – who was your favorite wrestler growing up? Who was the wrestler that made you, you think, really want to get into it? So I had a couple favorite wrestlers, I guess. My first favorite wrestler ever was the British Bulldog, B.B. Boy Smith, because the first W.W.U. show I ever saw was a VHS staple of WrestleMania 11, and my dad had the allied powers of Lex Lugar and Bibi Boy Smith.

And I immediately, for some reason, loved the British Bulldog. It was the way he looked, the way he wrestled, the way he carried himself. I was like, this guy's cool. Sean Michaels, and he stole. It was a pretty small kid, pretty scrappy for my age. The level he did against basically giants really inspired me, and that's what I made me say I want to be, I want to do this for a living. I want to be WWU superstar. From Stone Cold Steve Austin came along and I became sound.

I know that's again, you know, it's a figure of speech, right? My room is a floor to ceiling, Steve Austin posters. That's not a figure of speech for me. It was literally floor to ceiling every wall. Stone Cold Steve Austin Postman came along, and I was in between trying to his. I was there for his debut. in Montreal watching ECW, I became a huge fan of Steve Corino.

So all those guys played such an incredible part in my fandom as I was growing up watching WW. And even as I shake myself up as a wrestler, so all those guys deserved to be mentioned here. What was your, I know that you trained, I guess, it was at the Jacques Rougeau school, but you trained with Terry Taylor a lot. But take me through a little bit those first, you know, five or even 10 years of working the indie scene, were there, were there, were there, were the wrestlers that you remember seeing on tapes in your childhood that you got to get in the ring with or at least share a card with,

like, what were, what were some of your earliest memories of, of kind of crossing paths with, with, with other wrestlers? So, you know, I started training when I was 14 years old in a barn back home with a local wrestler, uh, named a special boy. He's a pretty good wrestler. He never really, you know, made it big as far as, uh, you know, he wrestled for WWA a couple times as an enhancement talent or anything. But he never really made it big outside of Quebec, as far as I know anyway.

But he was a very solid guy, a good guy. Unfortunately, I was only able to train with him for about a month before his training school shut down. It took about a year and a half until I found another wrestling school, Malas Jacques-Bussel's school that was opening up in Montreal. So I started with him when I was 15. I had my first match for his promotion because he also ran shows when I was 16 years old on my 16th birthday, actually.

From that point on until 2003, I only wrestled for Jacques Ruzzo because the way he would do things is three or four months, a thousand people in big arenas because his name, you know, when you hear Ruzzo, you think wrestling, obviously. Or if you hear wrestling, you think Ruzzo. That's how big the Rousal name is. He dropped these crowds.

He wasn't comfortable with his students or his trainees or whatever you want to call. The first three years, I only'm teaching us, because I had a train with him that left to go wrestle other places, a few hundred people, but they were having the time of their lives, and they were doing it every week. So I eventually got fed up and decided to go out on my own, and I realized that the way he was teaching us was the way he wanted us to wrestle on his shows, how you do it, just about how it works outside of his little bubble.

So I basically have to kind of retrain myself, and I managed to do that just wrestling as many times by culturally through IWS, which was a company in Montreal, We got a bit of attention. CZWG brought us over to the U.S. Jersey also brought us over to the U.S. and eventually we made contact with the PWG as for on a PWG

and everything kind of snowballed into where I am today. So when you're out there as an indie wrestler, I mean, I know you wrestled for just about everybody in the world over the span of, you know, 15 years. How do you, I mean, do you just learn about other promotions from, like, word of mouth they contact you? Like, it just seems like it's so much

to try to wrap your board. brain around as a, you know, as basically a kid trying to make a career out of it. Yeah, so, you know, like I said, I wrestled for Rujo at first, and I really didn't know it. I didn't know it better. You know, I'm a trustworthy person in the business telling me, wrestle for me for a couple years, and when you're ready, I'll send you to the WWE and I'll talk to WW for you. As I call, that's great. Little did I know that contacts with them, you know, exactly viewed like the people don't view it. It's not all positive, you know, but I didn't know that back. I was just a kid trusting somebody who was telling me,

trusting someone who had a lot of experience in the business, telling me, you know, you'll be fine, I'll take care of you when it's done. I was what's in the case, and I started kind of picking attention to school to go and see what else was out there. Like IWS and, you know, other smaller promotions all over the trial. I want to do that, you know, ring of honor and PCW and all the other places in the U.S. were there one day. I remember PWG specifically a couple of the guys talking about, like, They have really creative names for their show.

It seems really cool. Super Dragon, you know, the guy who wins that place. You know, we're hoping to wrestle with CZW and Jersey All-Pro. You know, so I kind of found out for all these companies through my buddies, really.

And then once I got it, and, you know, once I saw a reference to CZW and TerseW and L-PWG, you meet people that tell you about other companies. And it just kind of becomes a whole thing. And you just kind of, you know, make your own little network.

I got the chance to perform that, so that's pretty cool because it's a much little notch on my belt with the company of WWE that I managed to hit every independent professional wrestling companies that I wish to work for. Yeah, I saw you wrestle a few times in New York with Ring of Honor. Of course, there was, you know, the story that you were part of there with Coronet was that, you know, that he didn't want you to be champion, and there's obviously, you know, there's been stories about that. that have kind of come up through the rumor mill throughout your career. Would you feel like, but you also did get to wrestle everywhere you wanted to wrestle. So like did you feel like there were people that looked at you and said,

this guy's not going to, is not worth the time? Or, I mean, did you always feel like there was an opportunity if you made it for yourself? Yeah, I mean, I didn't want anything to do with me at all. And me, or generic. I know that's for a fact because people that were with him at the time when he took over the company, when you took run of honor over, told me that as much. Of course, he would never tell us that to our face. But it was obvious what he was trying to do

until who was the owner of Ring of Honor at the time and he promised me that I see the writing on the wall so I'd make them promise me that and even though I did this thing where I left Ring of Honor for a year after losing Rich Merico, I knew I had Kerry Filkin to come back

so back and he did and once he accepted that, we did do some good stuff together. I actually had a lot of fun with him working with him, doing promos with him after he left because I got a vocal about some of the stuff that I didn't agree with, and he really didn't. But, you know, I don't think Jim was ever against me per se.

I know about me. I kind of always knew I would end up here. You know, I always had a lot of faith in myself, and ultimately, I was right. So whatever people had a different opinion, that's fine. It never bothered me and never drove me to put them wrong. It's never like a motivational thing. I just kind of knew they were wrong, and, you know, I could live with that no problem. Well, let's talk a little bit about what motivates you.

I mean, those two, the two memories of you that I have, I think I was there the night that you came back from your year-long absence, but my two memories of you there at the Hammerstein were the last ladder war with Generico and then your match with Carino where you superplex them into the barrier, the ringside barrier was in the ring. And I've talked about it on my podcast before. That spot is the scariest spot I've ever seen in real life, just because the legs of those things were sticking up in the air.

So talking about motivation, like, how do you gear up? How do you get in the headspace to have a match like that match with Carino or like a ladder war? I mean, special. I have matches. To me, those kinds of matches are just the same as any match where there are no weapons involved or anything like that. I'm not hurt because there's a table with this starter. I find those things make for a fun match. So anytime I get to use them, more than happy to put that to do.

You know, most than anything, it's the trust I have. and myself and then my opponent to know that we're both to come out on the other side, healthy and hopefully happy. And, you know, time where that has and how I've done has different those matches, you know, bruised up, banged up, or I would say not any more so than any 20, 30-minute match. What we do is incredibly demanding physically whether you fall for the table or not. Way to make a living, and, you know, we just accept that. So my mindset for every match, regardless of what that involves.

WW schedule has to be more demanding on a day-to-day basis, although the travel might be better. I mean, the conditions might be a little bit better. But when you're talking about the physical toll, what's the weekly rehab schedule like? Well, so the thing about WWE is we wrestle more often, but we are, in fact, taking care of a lot better than independent promotions, just by the fact that we get to wrestle. You know, like the rings are always full somewhere. There's never a vote that it's great for our bodies. because I can't tell you how many rings I wrestled in on the independence that were terrible and dangerous and, you know, a real hazard to work in.

But not only that, you know, we have trainers, people who have done if we need before the show. Even though the sketch a week is more demanding than what I have 16 years of doing this, I can only say my body feels better than it did when I was on the independence. And that's a lot of has to do with the, that has a lot to do with the resources that, you know, gives us a, had the shows, whether it's the doctor or the trainer or, you know, stuff like that, or just the fact that the rings are safe and we work with good equipment, you know what I mean? So I feel better now that I, of course, I have, you know, little bumps and bruises of everybody.

Everyone does. There's no way around that. But I could do this for another 10 years, no problem, you know. That's good. That's good to hear. Speaking of differences between the Indies and WWE, I mean, the thing that I always end up talking to my friends about is, when I go see a great indie show is how cool the venue feels, right?

I mean, the Hammerstein ballroom is great. PWG is just a once-in-a-lifetime sort of experience. I actually just saw this NXT show here in L.A., and it was at a really cool. They've been running NXT at some really cool venues. Like, what is the, as someone who's been in front of every size crowd, like, what's the difference between being in a great, in front of a great indie crowd and, like, a big basketball arena?

You know, like, I'll state arena in Chicago or Staples Center now. LA or obviously, matters those places, is unbelievable 14, 15,000 people in there. Not to any TV show. That's something like, it's just incredible,

or, you know, 1,000 people there. You can't, there's no way to describe that feeling. But I've had a moment, mostly in PWG, because that building, like you said,

is very unique. It only fits about 450 people, standing room only, and people are standing on, practically on top of each other, everywhere that you'll have anybody at the PWGF2. WG shows that's there to just be a jerk and not enjoy what they see.

Everybody wants to enjoy what they see. Everybody's excited to be there, and it makes for a real... I haven't been there a couple years, obviously, but that was all... Sometimes you'll do some shows on the Independence where there's only about 100 people, and they're not particularly excited to be there, and that's kind of rough, honestly. It's not always fun, you know. But you've always had PWC to look forward. Anything can be compared to the WrestleMania or at my first Madison Square Garden show.

You know, those are really very special moments. And there are things that I, you know, I imagined and pictured and played through my head for years. So, you know, when I was got to actually stand there and do it for the first time, it's pretty proud. Yeah, I mean, talking about the fans, you know, at the various levels of wrestling, I mean, you seem to have, especially looking at the guys on the WWE kind of main event scene right now, you seem to have a sort of relationship with the fans that's different than everybody else. I mean, you, you know, a lot of people are booing you, but I think just as many people are, or let's say maybe they're respectfully booing you.

You know, they're kind of in there, they're along for the ride with you. And it really seems like you kind of have them in the palm of your hands in a certain way. We're like, you could be getting cheers if you wanted them, but you can control the sort of interaction that you have. I mean, it's a really sort of wonderful to watch. Do you have a philosophy? Do you have any techniques? What's your feeling about that? Or anything like that?

I do think I have a pretty good connection with the crowd almost everywhere. I don't know why that is. I think it's just something that's developed reliability. And, you know, other people have it too. I'm not saying I'm special for it or anything like that. But if I'm in the middle of a match and someone from the fifth row yells something, I'll hear it. Like, it's weird. I can hear things that other people don't necessarily get to hear.

I really don't know where it comes from. I don't know what it is that a lot of people enjoy, whether it's a lot of people enjoy how vocal I am during my matches. Coach Steve Austin told me to run my mouth as much as I could when I met him in an airport, you know, several years ago. I told that story many times. I met him at an airport when I was on my way to a DWG show back in 2000 considered myself the biggest Tom Cruise himself said in the world.

So I had to talk to him. And he gave me that piece of advice and it really changed my career because I immediately put it to work, you know, that very week. weekend when I was in that match with PWG, I started running my mouth not only before the match or after match, but in the match. To a lot of people, because it's kind of did my own horn, but I feel like I've kind of started a very, like, WW or even on the independence because of me. But I definitely feel like I'm at the forefront of it as somebody who's been doing it for a very

long time, and there's been more of a spotlight shined on it. You know, I started with WWE. Buying me because you can do what they want. Like when I was watching wrestling, I never considered who was a good guy or was a bad guy and whether or not I should cure or boo them, I love some of the bad guys and I despise some of the good guys. But I also loved a lot of the big guys and despised a lot of the bad guys. I just responded however they reached me to have fun, and I was when I was a kid.

I was doing a match years old watching WWE, would Kevin have enjoyed that? Would that have entertained? And if the answer is yes, then I'm different. however that calls out to them, you know. Some things I do can make one person booing out of the building and make somebody else. You're not noise. Like I've said this before,

the most incredible in WWU so far on the scene. I would come out first. And when they're standing in the middle of rain, as music hits, you get hit by it, you get hit by it just as many, it makes for this incredible noise. It's like a wave of just noise.

It's not one or another. It's just, it's thinking so many times when that would happen, I want that. That's what I want. That's what I'm working for. So if people are split down the middle, I don't really mind. As long as they're making a lot of noise and they're being very loud, that's what I'm looking. So that's a good segue. I appreciate that. Into your main roster run in WWE, when you get the word that you're getting called up,

do they tell you right off the bat you're getting in the ring with John Sina? And then once you find out you're in the ring with John Sina, do they tell you we're thinking about this being a few months long few? I mean, what was the, what did you find out? How did that happen? Well, of 2015. So I remember I was on my way. I was on the group fight with everybody.

About the fight to, I believe it was, I'd have been Philly and pretty sure it was Philadelphia in May of 2015. And I got an email saying, hey, by the way, you're not coming home. You're not coming home with everybody on Sunday. You're saying for wrong. I'm asking Matt Bloom about it. the head coach, and he didn't know anything. Or did he?

You know, he put it down, I guess. I'm like, all right, well, I guess we'll see what happened. And then that night, Triple H took me aside and told me, well, being called up, which I'll never forget that moment. Because to me at that point, I didn't know, with W.W.D.N. That's something else I've said before. I was told not to get my hopes up about being on Raw or Smackdown or the main roster.

You know, I was thought I would be given a chance. and I can see like everyone else. But obviously the way I look, you know, you might not ever get on the main roster. Who knows? But I was still not to get my hopes up. About eight months later, or maybe a little more than that,

but, you know, a relatively short period of time after that, and I was still getting called up. And, you know, I feel like almost time stood still. And then, you know, he went up to say, you're starting on Raw this Monday. You're doing something with John Cena. That's all he has.

at the time, everything else, you know, was just kind of up in the air, but at least sense to me. I remember thinking later on that that's exactly where I belong. I belong on the wrong. I belong with John Trey. Because that's where I view myself. So it was really cool to get that validation, I guess. That, you know, I knew that's where I should do. I knew that's where I belong.

And yeah, they told me don't get my hopes up, but I have my hopes. Because I knew I had faith in myself. a couple months later, it's proven rights. So, I mean, I guess that the validation just, you know, continues. You were, I mean, you're walking around with the Universal Championship belt right now. And, you know, you mentioned Finn Baller earlier as being one of your friends. And obviously your assent to the title kind of coincided with him getting the bell, but then getting hurt and having to drop it.

how does that thing sort of go down between buddies backstage? How did you again find out that you were getting put in this position? Well, you know, for the universal title. Me and Sin got very close. We had never met before we got to WWE together. We met one, a few months before we both reported to Florida. And at that time, at that point, we already knew we were both coming to WWE. We had never spoken to each other, never met.

or we had maybe met on an indie show here and there, but, you know, nothing above high. You know, we haven't talked. But we kind of gravitated towards each other because we knew we were about to be in the same, be close. And, you know, for the whole time I was on the main roster, I was thinking, how come, you know, what's taking so long? Why is it from Finn coming, you know? And Finn was, you know, doing a thing in NXT, but obviously everybody wants to be on the main roster, so I know it was on his mind as well.

But when he started on the main roster and on his first night, you know, basically earned the SummerSlam, I thought like, well, now he's making up for a lost time. Just like I felt like I kind of was doing that as well. You know, it took me 15 years to get to the WWU once I got out of here. I made up for lost time because in the two years that I've been here, I achieved and lived maybe 10 years for me to achieve otherwise. See, for a while, but now he's here and he's wrestling for the title of Somersam already. he's taking up for a long time as well. So I was very happy for him. I knew he had gotten hurt when it happened instantly.

I just saw it. As a performer, as a wrestler, you can kind of see something that other people might not necessarily notice. And I knew he was hurt. So when he came to the back, I could see that something was wrong. It didn't go that way. You know, he ended up meeting surgery, and the title had to be vacated.

He's my friend, and he deserved that moment so much. I'd be lying if I wasn't a little excited because not excited that he obviously on this awful thing. Oh, I mean, where there's chaos, there's opportunity. And I felt like this was my chance. When I heard, yes, Finn's relinquishing the title, I really felt like, all, I didn't know at the time at all that I would even be involved in the matches or anything. You know, nobody told me that that was a plan.

I just in my head thought, like, this is going to come to me. It's got to be my time. And sure enough, it ended up being the, like, that ended up being the case next week. And, you know, I won the title in a pretty great moment to share with a lot of people backstage. And, you know, I called my wife. I call my parents. The next person I called was Finn. And he was very happy for me, just like I, you know, I was happy for him when he got to win it.

And obviously, he's got unfinished business with that title. He didn't lose it. And when he comes back, I'd be more than happy to get to compete with him for that title. and, you know, create some memories for the fans, but ourselves, too, because like I said, we went through all this, the first part of our WWD journey together. Now it feels like we've kind of been separated a little because he's recovering from that injury. I'm going through all this with the title, but once we come back together later, that we can do together, and it's going to be an incredible ride,

so I'm really looking forward to him coming back. Yeah, I am too. I think everybody listening to this probably is. Well, the Survivor Series is right around the corner. You're in the kind of headlining Survivor Series match, and you know as a wrestling fan as well as I do that, you know, back when we were kids, the big Survivor Series matches, that was the big deal.

We've gone through a period of time where they were a little bit of a sideline to like the championship matches or whatever else. This year feels like a really important year just in the sense that you look at the roster, you look at the five versus five men's match at Survivor's. series, and it really feels like WWE saying, these are our guys. Like, these are the 10 fellows, the 10 men to keep an eye on between now and WrestleMania and for the next couple of years.

Do you feel like that's true? And if so, like, how does it feel to be a part of that sort of, that, you know, that upper tier? Yeah, so first of all, I agree with you. This was one of the shows I look forward to the most, King of the Ring. I love the King of Ring tournament. I hope they bring those back as well. But, you know, eventually it looked like they had almost phased out the elimination matches from Survivor Series.

And I was pretty bummed out about that. I'm pretty thrilled to be part of one this year because I didn't get to be part of those last year. You know, we had the tournament for the title last year. I don't even know if there was any elimination matches last year. I know that I was in the tournament for the pride end, you know, on top of the fact that, like you said, it's a pretty big match. it's all the top, you know, top key players on each brand time. It's in Toronto, it's at the Air Canada Center, which I've wanted to wrestle for, I ever wrestle in, you know, for many years.

I remember seeing SummerSlam many years ago there and, you know, seeing Randy Horton's the WWE title. I make for a really exciting night for me. And obviously there's, you know, the competition between the background. That's very real. So it's definitely going to be interesting to see how everything comes out. Does it, I mean, this is a question that, you know, I feel like this gets overblown on the internet every day, but does it, do you guys talk at all about the fact that Lesnar and Goldberg are, you know, being put up there as the headliners or any, well, you know, your match is just as important? And Goldberg and Brock Lesnar weren't advertised for that show.

Roland, Roman Rain, Sammy Zane, who are 60 people who are excited to Lesnar and Goldberg, and I understand why people would be excited for that. It is an exciting match. Kids were sold out before, you know. I don't care where they end up on the show if they're, you know, if they go on last, if they're considered the main event, whatever. We all know what we're worth and we all know how talented we are as individuals, and we all know what we can do. So I'm really not bothered by it or giving any thoughts to it because, you know, in the end, like I said,

I know who sold the ticket. You mentioned Roman Reins. You know, there's rumors all over the Internet that you're, going to be fighting him at roadblock the next pay-per-view. When rumors like that leak out, do you say, like, you know, come on, dudes, like, you can do a better job of keeping it under wraps? Like, does that affect, does that go through your mind at all? No, because a lot of times those rumors are not true anyway.

I'm not saying that it's not true or false because there's something that was necessarily discussed out or why it gets out or who gets it out. You know, whether or not I wrestle Roman rains that roadblock remains to be seen. I don't really worry about anything like that. I worry about, you know, I take one day at a time. And, you know, for now, Survivor Series. Ross, tonight, Survivor Series of Sunday, that's what I'm thinking about right now. Well, and then right around the corner, I mean, this has got to be a crazy time to be the

universal champion because we're already thinking about Roadblock now. And then right around the corner is the Royal Rumble, right around the corner is WrestleMania. This interview, I got to mention, is, you know, you're sponsored by WW2K17, the new video game, which looks incredible. When you think about your WrestleMania dream matches, both with, like, the current roster, guys that you want to get in there with, and then with, like, the giant roster of 2K17, what is it, what is, like, the, the, like, the wrestler from your childhood that you would love to wrestle. Well, so the wrestler from my childhood, if I could wrestle a WrestleMania, would be Sean Michaels, and I think pretty much everybody would answer that. I don't know. Someone who I could actually possibly wrestle a WrestleMania, I've answered this many times before, but I'd love to get in there with Brock Lesnar because, uh,

First of all, I think a lot of people want to see that match, whether it's out of curiosity or just out of the hopes that I get my head to spin or, you know, I'd love to do it just because I've honestly been a fan of Brock Lesnar for, since the moment I saw him debut in Montreal on raw all those years ago, I was there. And at the moment, I still remember very fondly, also getting the ring with them would be a thrill. There's also, you know, the question of whether or not I could hang with them, whether or not I could even ever get him off his feet.

just, there's just a lot of very interesting things in that matchup that I'm, I'd be, I'd be all for, of course, doing it at WrestleMania. That's the biggest, I've been pretty vocal about it. Pretty much every interview I do, I kind of call him out. And, you know, I don't think he cares. I don't think he hears about the interview. And Brock Lesnar does his own thing. And he's, you know, he cares about Brock Lesnar.

We'll just be thrilled to get to do it because, you know, I get to say I wrestle Brock Lesnar and WrestleMania. That's pretty, that's pretty much as big as it gets. You know? But there's so many guys I'd love to wrestle at WrestleMania. I think Sammy Zane and I have another one in us, you know, and it seems like it would be logical for the big place of WrestleMania. You know, Finn Dallor, if he's back in time, it would be a logical choice.

And, you know, an important part for me is just to be a focal point of WrestleMania. And, you know, it's an exciting time from here on, like from here to WrestleMania is always pretty crazy. Survivor Series to WrestleMania with the Rumble and everything else. So the next few months are pretty exciting. And now I get to do it all as WW Universal Champion, so it had the level of excitement that was in there last year. Okay, I'm going to just ask a couple of questions. And this isn't technically the speed round, but they're all over the place.

So feel free to answer these quickly if you want to speed things up. You mentioned your one-time idol and the guy you've wrestled a lot, Steve Carino earlier. saw he was down to the performance center recently. They had some video of him on, I think, WWU's Twitter account. Is it still crazy when you see guys, when you see, you know, people like Steve Carino down there

teaching people how to be better wrestlers? Well, to me that makes sense completely. It's not crazy at all. I think Steve Carino belongs. He's done so much for me in my career and how shape who I became as a performer. You know, I met him in 2000, I think 2000. poor. He kind of took me under his wing, stuff like that.

And then we kind of, you know, drifted apart. But then when he came back to Ring of Honor, we picked things up right where we left off, and we've been very close ever since. And, you know, I sent out a tweet earlier about that video that you mentioned about the At the Performance Center, and I said he's one of the most influential people in my career and one of the best guys all around that I've met in wrestling or in life, and I mean that. For me, Pete Carino being at the Performance Center isn't crazy at all.

It's very logical. It makes complete sense to me. I hope something comes out of the week he had there. I know he really enjoyed it. And from what I hear, everybody there, from the coaches to the girls, the performance center, I really enjoyed having them there, too. Well, you said before that, you know, I mean, you studied under various people, but you ended up having to kind of teach yourself re-learn how to wrestle on the fly.

You obviously spent a lot of time on the Indies before you made it to the Performance Center. even when they bring in the guys like Steve Carrino, obviously this is a benefit to everybody there, but do you think as good as the performance center is, the wrestlers still need to start off on the Indies and spend some time and learn a variety of styles before they come to WWE? Do you think that's important?

I mean, I think it's an advantage. You know, it's something to have in your back pocket. Pretty insane. You know, that almost specialize in different things. Like, you know, you've got Matt Bloom who spent years in WWE, and in Japan running the show. And you've got Terry Taylor

who worked the territory for so many years. And you've got Robbie Brooks side who wrestled all over Europe. And you've got Norman Smiley. He was Mexico. And you've got, you know,

Faradale Ray, who, you know, we've had on the independence for many years. There's just literally, and I'm just naming those now,

but there's so many more. Like, now Sean Michael those at the Tourment Center once in a while to help out. Like, there's really, you could, you know, and they, I mean, they take, they do it all the time, right? They'll sign athletes from another, the thing that's, like, in my opinion, the only thing that's necessary is the passion and love.

It's not saying that you have to have that right when you set foot in the performance center. Because I know for a fact that some guys, fine, he was an amateur wrestler out of Vancouver. He got signed. And, you know, he was reluctant to find at first because he just didn't know if it was for him or not. and I remember its first few weeks of the Performance Center, I guess he kind of felt comfortable talking to me because I was from Canada as well. He would tell me, he's like, I don't know if this is for me.

And I said, well, you have to figure it out, you know. If you don't end up loving this, then there's no point in saying here. But if you do learn to love it, then you're going to probably learn to be good at it because you're an athlete, you're an amateur wrestler, and you have all the tools here to make you a good professional wrestler. And he ended up learning to love it. He ended up, and now he's on NXT television, and he's doing really good.

I think the most important part is you have to love that whether you've watched your whole... You've been on the independence, there's enough resource of the tournament center where you can become a really good professional wrestler, even if you, or even if you didn't go through the independence. But if you don't love it, you're not going to make it. You know what I mean? It's a hard thing to do. So if you don't love it, I don't see how it's possible to make it here.

It's too demanding. You have to dedicate yourself completely, and I think to be able to do that, you have to love it. All right, three more super quick ones, and I'll let you get out of here. One, these are questions from staff members here at the Ringer, who have varying degrees of wrestling knowledge. One, do you really have to carry the title belt around with you everywhere you go when you travel, and are there any other funny side effects or, like, side effects or, like, you know, byproducts of being the champion that you weren't expecting?

Well, I do have to carry the title with me, but it's not. have to carry. I want to carry this time. It's my title. I'm very proud of that title. And I know a lot of people like to rag on the fact that it's red. If you look at that title in person, it looks incredible. And I'm very proud of that title. So anybody who, you know, H-J. Stiles even made some remarks last week on Smackin about the title that I didn't pay kindly to me. I don't appreciate him saying those things about the title that I carry around with pride. You know, Sean's at him right now and I won't because he has no chance. of a comeback.

I'm very proud of that title. I want to carry it around with me. So even if I didn't have to, we said you can leave the title here if you want because we have to, I guess there was some sort of photo shoot that they needed to do, and I'm like, no, I want to take it with me.

I'm like, okay, we'll just take the pictures next week then. And I did, you know? So I took it with me, and I saw it, I'm very proud of it. And I guess, you know, one of the many perks of being a champion besides the fact that I realized my dream

is, you know, I get flown for his class in her now, which is pretty neat. It's a nice little perk of being the champion. And if anything, it just adds to one of the many reasons why I've got to hold on to that type. All right, really quickly, describe Chris Jericho in real life. Like, you'll do it in three words if you can. I can't do it in three words, but I will say it's pretty close to what you're going.

He's pretty wild. He's pretty funny. And it's been a blast to be around him in and out of the ring these past few months. He's something that looked up to for many years and to get to share the ring with him and to get to share the locker room with him, or the bus, or the plane, you know, because he was with us on this whole tour. It's been a really, really cool experience. All right, last question.

What do you do, Raw is, you know, as everybody knows, three hours long. Sometimes you're on the very beginning and the very end. What do you do in between segments on Monday Night Raw? I can. As much as I can, whether it's a live event or Raw or a pay-per-view. If I'm not getting ready for my own thing, I'm usually sitting and watching. and observing what other people are doing.

I think that comes along with being a fan, because I'm such a huge fan. I'm a fan of what other people do. Problem taking myself out of the equation, and, you know, when I'm sitting at guerrilla, even though I'm in guerrilla and I'm, you know, right by Vince McMahon was wearing the whole show, I have no problem losing myself and what I'm seeing

and seeing it from a fan's perspective. You know, I know in a couple hours or in a couple minutes I have to go out there perform myself, you know. I'll never lose that an aspect of who I am. I'll always be a fan, so if I'm not performing, I'm usually watching.

Wow. Well, I mean, I think that's all there is to say about why you've made it as far as you have. And at the expense of sounding like a sappy fanboy, I'm a huge fan of yours, Kevin Owens. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot for having me, man. Thanks to WW2K17

for setting it up. You've got to go out and buy the game as soon as you can. And, you know, WWE, you heard your champion. Bring back King of the Ring. I'll see you later on, Humanoids.