Kevin Owens On Injuries, WrestleMania, Stone Cold, Beating Up Vince McMahon, Sami Zayn

On learning English through wrestling:

"I started watching wrestling when I was 11, so I kind of started picking it up. Then my dad would watch TV in English so I watched some TV shows with him, here and there. I remember Friends, I'd watch a lot with him. And then I think I'd say by the time I was maybe 14, I couldn't really speak English that well but I understood everything. I like to say Jim Ross basically taught me English. Then by the time I was maybe 17 I think I was fully bilingual, something like that." 

Did you understand what a slobber knocker was?

"So I actually thought that slobber knocker was part of the English language. I thought it was a normal word, and I would use it in everyday life and it made no sense. So a lot of my friends from the wrestling school that were English, that was one of the things they loved, that I spoke English but like Jim Ross, which is why it's like Jim Ross taught me English and it made no sense. But I eventually picked up oh that's just a weird expression that he made up." 

Did you have a bit of an Oklahoma accent too? 

"No, I don't think so. I think I had a very thick French accent for a long time that kind of dissipated over the years. It still comes out here and there. [But you don't really have that much of a French accent.] I think the more tired I get, the more comes out from what I hear. I guess, that's what I'm told. I always sound the same to me."

Are you speaking French at home? 

"So I speak to my parents in French. But my wife, although she does speak French, is English and my kids, since they grew up in a English-speaking household. So we speak English. My son understands French, speaks it a little bit. My daughter is pretty clueless about French."

On whether WWE was always the goal:

"Yeah, absolutely. I was watching wrestling when I was 11 years old, my dad rented the tape. It was like a month after the show actually happened, and he just went to the local video store where we could rent tapes and whatever. He was looking for a movie, we had seen everything, he's like, let's just rent this wrestling thing. I knew what it was, but never really seen it and he wasn't like an avid fan or anything. He was just, let's watch something we don't usually watch. I was hooked pretty quick. I really got into the first match. I remember loving The British Bulldog, he was in the opener and I thought that guy rules. Then as the night went on, all the matches I really enjoyed. Then Shawn Michaels came out and to me, at the time I was 11 years old but I was so small for my age. People thought I was like seven or eight. To me, seeing the smallest guy on the show by far being the best one, I was like I could do that, and from that point on, that was it. That's all I wanted to do. Tape ended, I told my dad that's what I'm going to do, and then they cultivated my interest. I was very lucky, they could have told me don't be silly or whatever, like most parents would, I guess. But nope, they went all in. They started buying all the pay-per-views for me, letting me stay up to watch Raw and SmackDown when it later came and yeah, they were 100% behind it from the start."

On there not being a path for Canadian wrestlers at that time:

"Which is funny, because once I joined Jacques’ wrestling school, obviously he had the WWE connection because he had wrestled there. So of course I met him and I was like oh, this is a big deal. There's a guy I watch on WWE TV, whoa. And in Quebec, the Rougeau name means a lot. That family is legendary for wrestling in Quebec. So it was a really big deal for me to meet him. Really big deal for me to train with him. Over the years though, I was probably at this wrestling school for three years. We just had different mentalities, different values and just different points of view on life and wrestling as well. He would run his wrestling school a certain way where he would run shows every three to four months. Only one or two shows every three or four months, but he would do them in like 2,000-seat arenas, and because of his name he'd get like 1,000 people or 1,500 people in. So it was great to wrestle in front of those types of crowds, but you can only wrestle once every three or four months.

So by that point I kind of figured out I gotta get more experience, but he wouldn't let us wrestle on smaller wrestling companies around Quebec just because he was like, I don't want you guys to get hurt. I don't want you guys to pick up bad habits from other wrestlers, this and that. But what he would dangle is I'm your way to WWE, which we didn't know any better, and we bought it. But then about three years in, I think he had some health issues that led to him not running shows. So when he said I'm not going to be able to run shows for a while we're like, Well, you got to let us go wrestle somewhere else, and he said, Okay, fine. So all the students from his wrestling school started wrestling all over Quebec, and I was booked every weekend everywhere. That's where I met Sami. I met a lot of people and I just started wrestling every weekend multiple times a week, and it was such a blast. I loved it so much.

Then about six months after, or maybe less than that, three months after we started doing that, he pulled it back and said, Look, I need you guys to stop wrestling everywhere because now WWE is coming for Raw soon and I secured a try-out for two of my guys. He said it's going to be me and the other guy, Eric the trainer. But if you want that, you have to stop wrestling everywhere else. You have to sign a 10-year contract with me as your agent that guarantees me 15% of your contract, and I couldn't care less about the money. I couldn't care less about him, I'm like yeah, whatever, but I don't want to stop wrestling anywhere else. Until the show, the try-out, I have to keep wrestling. He fought me on it and then eventually he called me. It was in November of 2003 and I was wrestling for IWS at that point in Montreal, which was the biggest wrestling company in Montreal and it was a lot of fun. I just loved wrestling there so much. He called me the day after what I thought was gonna be my last show with them, because I can't wrestle anymore. So he called me, he just started talking about the tryout and Raw’s coming, and I'm like, 'When is Raw?' He's like, 'I don't know. They haven't announced it yet, but it's coming soon.' And I'm like, 'But when is it?' He's like, 'I don't know.' I'm like, 'Well, is it in three months? In six months?' He got annoyed with me and then I was like, something just didn't feel right. I really don't want to stop wrestling. As soon as I said that he's like, 'All right, fine, you made your decision,' and he hung up on me. That was the last time I spoke to him. And from that point I was like all right, f*ck it. I'm gonna go do whatever I need to do anywhere." 

On his love of Owen Hart:

"So I have a brother that's 10 years older than me, and as brothers do, we'd fight a lot when we were kids. Because he was 10 years older than me, was a lot stronger than me. So he always won, let's put it that way. So when I was younger I couldn't help but have a bit of a resentment towards him, which is not the case. I love him. But when you're a kid, you feel differently about things. I remember I watched WrestleMania 11, and I liked Bret Hart enough after WrestleMania 11, but then I started going backwards and watching the shows that were before WrestleMania 11. I rented all the tapes, and I believe it was a Royal Rumble of that same year, Bret's wrestling Diesel and in the match he tries to tie Diesel's legs up with the camera wires and to me, that's cheating, he's cheating. This is terrible. Why is he cheating? Then Owen comes into frame to try to fight Bret. To me I'm like yeah, that's the right thing to do, trying to keep him from cheating. He's the younger brother trying to fight off the older brother. So I was like Owen Hart's my guy. That was it. It was like the dynamic between me and my older brother and him and his older brother is what made me like him at first, and then obviously he's an incredible wrestler and very charismatic, very entertaining. So yeah, just become a huge fan of his."

On what his WWE name would have been if he couldn’t be Kevin Owens:

"I don't really know. So we also share the same birthday and when Owen passed away, I remember thinking if I ever have a son I'm going to call him Owen. Then several years passed obviously, and in 2007 my wife got pregnant and thankfully she was on board with calling him Owen. Which was even crazier, because we visited an apartment that we were going to move into while she was pregnant, and the tenants that lived there previously had left some stuff behind. On the door of what was going to be our son's bedroom was wooden letters that they put on the door was the name of the kid that was there previously, and the name was Owen. So she was like, that definitely has to be his name. So it's actually more of a tribute to my son, but my son's a tribute to Owen. So it's actually Triple H who suggested I be Kevin Owens. We were going back and forth on names and nothing really sounded right. Then one day Hunter just said, because I had pitched Owen something, and he's like, What about Kevin Owens? I'm like, Yeah, I love it. So we went with it. I remember after I guess WWE trademarked it. So the websites found out about it, and it started going online. Obviously, it's gonna be Kevin Steen's name. I got to the Performance Center, and for some reason I forgot my key cards. Had to go through the front and I'm waiting for somebody to open the door. The door swings open and it's Dusty, and he's walking in front of me. He goes, 'Kevin Owens huh?' I go, 'Yeah, you like it?' And he goes, 'Nope. Who came up with it?' I go, 'Triple H.' And he goes, 'I love it.' Yeah, he was the best. So that was it from then on."

On the promo that got Kevin Owens hired:

"So the try-outs are hard. They're very hard. They're very physically demanding. They're basically like blow-up drills, nonstop. It's really not about trying to see if you're in amazing shape, because they can mold you into shape at the Performance Center. It's really to see the heart you have and the attitude you have. I was at this try-out, and there were so many guys that were jacked to the gills that you'd think oh these guys are amazing athletes, for sure these guys are as good as signed. They fell like flies, left and right. But me and Willie Mack were probably the guys that are in the least athletic shape there. We weren't beating records of speed in these drills, but we were doing them, and we weren't stopping. So we showed the heart that they were looking for and the attitude they were looking for. I actually had to at one point, not give up, but like one of the drills on the second day from sheer exhaustion it's very hard. You're jumping over a heavy bag to do drop downs, and I landed on my hand crooked, and I thought I broke my wrist, so I had to stop that particular drill. I was really upset because in mind I'm like, oh sh*t. That's going to hurt me. So right after it happened is when they sent us back to the gym to get a break. Then Matt Bloom, who at the time was not the head trainer of the PC, was just one of the trainers said come here. So I went, and it was just me and Canyon Ceman. All the trainers were lined up, and they were like, cut a promo. So I got that promo, and then they're like, Okay, thanks."

On people saying he doesn’t look like a wrestler:

"Yeah, I mean, I still get it all the time. But really, the people that feel like that's a knock or an insult, they're just very stupid. I'm so comfortable with how I look. I always have been, which is probably what's driven so many people crazy, because my weight has fluctuated over the years for sure. There were times where I was much heavier than I am now and there are reasons for that. They’ll say, 'Well, you weren't working out enough. You were eating like sh*t.' Yeah, that's true, but it never hindered my work. So you might have not liked looking at me the way I looked at that point, but I was having killer matches either way, I was able to talk better than most people on the roster, and that never changed. So now I've lost weight because honestly, I haven't done anything. This is the funny part. I haven't done anything to lose weight. I didn't set out and go, I'm gonna lose weight. I really didn't, just my weight fluctuates a lot. I might be a little more active in my everyday life than I was for a while, whatever it may be. I don't know my metabolism. I really have no idea, but yeah right now I've shed some pounds. I might put more on. I really don't know. But I've never made a conscious choice to be heavier or be lighter or look better and man, that really drives a lot of people crazy."

On not being able to fault his athleticism:

"Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I mean, it's like everyone, there will be fans that will look at guys that are in incredible shape and still find something wrong. So yeah, some people are just born to discredit other people because of their own shortcomings, I guess. As stupid as it sounds, 'Oh, they're just jealous.' There probably is something to that to a level. If you spend most of your time trying to tear other people down, even subconsciously, there's kind of something with you that’s the problem."

On convincing Steve Austin to come out of retirement:

"Well, I didn't do it. I really didn't. I don't know the exact story and how it all unfolded. I will say this part. A couple of years before this happened, I was doing the pop-up Powerbomb as my finishing move and everyone was doing Powerbombs. I would see a lot of guys doing Powerbombs. I'm like everybody's kind of doing Powerbombs right now, I think I need another finishing move. What could I do? Well, the greatest finishing move of all time to me is the Stone Cold Stunner and nobody does it. Some people will do it here and there. I actually had done it once against Roman in Texas, and I only did it because we were in Texas, but it was just a one-time thing. But then when I was trying to figure out I need a finishing move, I'm like Stone Cold Stunner is it. But before I could do that I had to ask Steve for permission. I could not do it. Like I said I'd use it on the indys once. Actually, I did his podcast on the indys. So two days later at a Ring of Honor show I used the Stunner just because I'd just done his podcast. It was kind of topical and then I used it against Roman once. But I'm like, if I'm going to use it on a regular basis of a finishing move, I have to make sure he's okay with it. 

So I happened to run into him at a show in Baltimore that he was at for Raw. So I went in and we talked, and it's funny, because like I said I saw him in 2005, then for years didn't see him at all. Then in 2012 I was at the top of Ring of Honor. I was probably the top guy in the indys at that point and I was listening to the Stone Cold Podcast all the time. At the end of his podcast, he'd always say if you have any questions send it to questions at BSR... whatever his website was. So I said, I'm going to send him an email thanking him for the advice he gave me all those years ago. Maybe he'll answer but maybe he'll even have me on his podcast. And sure enough that's exactly what happened. I emailed him, '2005 at the airport you gave me great advice, and my career has flourished since. Thank you.' And he wrote back, I actually do remember that. 'So do you want to be on my podcast?' And like, yeah. So he goes, 'Okay, I have Jim Cornette as my guest on this podcast, I'll do an hour with Jim and then your part will be after, we'll do 10 minutes with you.' I'm like, great. Then he calls me and goes, 'Hey, I don't know what happened, but Cornette’s not answering. So let's just do the whole podcast together.' I was like yes, finally Jim Cornette does something good for me. 

So yeah, we did the whole podcast. Talked for like an hour and when it came out the next day it was a huge deal because he hadn't really done a podcast with an independent guy at that point. I think maybe Colt [Cabana] had done his podcast by that point, but that was it. So it was a huge deal for me. And the fans were really excited, and they listened to the conversation, and I think that really helped. At the end of the podcast he goes WWE should take a look at this guy, and it wasn't long after. I'd already had the communication with them. But I think that helped in making it more serious and making more of a priority, almost. Then years later, here we are running into each other at WWE. I had to tell him just how crucial he was and helping me get there.

So anyway, then I asked him I want to do the Stone Cold Stunner as my finisher, and I just want to make sure you're okay with it, and he said, 'Yeah, I actually can't believe nobody's asked me already yet. So yeah, please go ahead.' So I was really pumped. Then I went to Vince and asked him if I could, and he said, 'No, you can't do that.' Okay. Then years went by and I got hurt. I went away for a bit and I came back as a babyface. My first match back was a tag team match against Erik Rowan and Daniel Bryan, who was doing the protecting the earth, and I had to go over. I had to beat Bryan that night. They're like, Well, what do you want to do? Stone Cold Stunner? And they said, okay, all right. And that was it. From then on became my finish. 

So I would have to admit tying back to how he came back, when I asked him to use the Stone Cold Stunner yes, I wanted a new finishing move and yes, I think it's the greatest finish of all time. But there was a big part of me who thought in the unlikely event, which won't happen, but if he ever were to come back for a match, it's going to be against the guy who was doing his finishing move, and that's exactly what happened. So I don't think that played a part in it. I think Vince wanted him to be on WrestleMania in Dallas and he wasn't sure in what capacity. I'm not sure how. I think they talked. He said no at first from what I understand. Then they went back to him, and he's like, Okay, who would it be with? And I think that's when they said me, which I think he was good with. Then somehow, was it going to be a talking segment? Was it going to be a match? Was it going to be a stunner? Literally up until the day of the show we had no idea. Me and Steve had talked, I would talk to Steve, ask him, 'What are we going to do?' And he goes, 'I don't know, depends on Vince.' So I talked to Vince, and Vince goes depends on Steve. And I'm like can't you guys talk to each other for f*ck sake? But yeah, up until that day we really didn't know for sure what it was going to be, turned out to be what it was and it was pretty great. I'm very lucky to have been a part of it. To this day the craziest thing that I'll ever have done in my career, and I don't think anything will top it. Even me and Sami winning the tag titles at WrestleMania was unbelievable. In the main event, which is great now, because WrestleMania Main Event night one. There's a lot of people that argue it's not really the main event, but now that Punk’s in it this year, everyone says it is the main event, because you don't want to take that away from him. So now it finally validates that. So anyway, winning the titles at WrestleMania together was insane. We were talking about this stuff when our dream would be a let's win the Ring of Honor tag titles, we're talking about this in like 2004 and then we never even really talked about winning the WWE Tag titles, because we're not going to be in WWE are we? No, we are. And then we start talking, we got to team and win the tag titles, and then we teamed for a little bit in 2018 but then we went our separate ways. So we're like we didn't even win the tag titles. And we kind of thought, oh, I guess that's it. But then the story started to shift with him and The Usos and stuff. And anyway, all the pieces fell into place, and we won the tag titles at WrestleMania as incredible and kind of unlikely as that moment was, it still wasn't as unlikely as Stone Cold coming back 19 years later for a match. So to this day, that match with Steve will always be and like I said, I don't think anything will top it the craziest night of my career."

On whether Steve Austin stiffed him in the match:

"Yeah. Actually the night of the match, when I go back to my hotel my earlobe was swollen like this big from his punches. I went [squeezes] and it just splattered against the mirror. He kept saying, You didn't give me any receipts. What am I gonna do? But honestly, in that moment too, I felt the punches but they weren't any worse than anything I felt before. But to him, that shows how much of a pro he is. Bret has always prided himself on how he's never hurt anyone. You could barely feel him in the ring and stuff, and that's amazing. I think Steve was the same way, so he prided himself on not killing people and that night he knew he was killing me. But to me it was not any worse than other guys." 

On attacking Vince McMahon:

"He just talked all kinds of sh*t. He's shaking my hand and just saying, I don't remember what he said, but he was really trying to provoke me because he wanted to make sure I was going to lay in that headbutt. Little did he know I was already planning on laying it in because I had worked for him for two years at that point, I wasn't going to miss that chance. So I did and yeah, it was a pretty insane moment. When he came up with the blood and everything I was like, Whoa, here we go. But my favorite part of that whole thing was after, it's a moment that was only seen. I don't think it was on TV, maybe only caught by digital as everybody's tending to Vince. I'm walking in the back and I turn around to look at the ring. I'm just looking at the ring, and I hear kind of like a rumble in the crowd. I go to turn, and as I turn Stephanie's right there in my face. She looked at me. She looks furious. She just looks at me and goes, 'Get the f*ck to the back!' And I go, okay, and I turn around. Look, I really like Stephanie a lot. She's been great, just been so supportive of not just me, but everybody. When Hunter was running NXT, and we all got there at the same time, my crop of NXT guys me, Sami, Finn, Bayley, Becky, Charlotte… Stephanie would be at the NXT shows quite a bit and she was just always so supportive and so just proud of us. And yeah, it was great. It's like that whole generation of NXT was so special, not just because of the talent there, but the support we had from all the trainers to Dusty, Hunter and Stephanie, they really felt like we were to a degree kind of their kids, and they were trying to get us out into the world. That was really special to be around that kind of energy." 

On the fan footage of his attack on Cody Rhodes:

"It wasn't me. That was Triple H. That was his idea. He felt confident in doing it that way. I was not sure. I'm like I don't know, is there even going to be enough people there? It turns out he was completely right, there was and yeah, it's just a different way of telling the stories and he's got a different mentality than Vince had. It's really interesting, and people really responded to it. The same thing with Randy, the way I ended up ultimately turning on Randy it was on TV, but it was done differently. It was something that was released later as well, and you just kind of caught the tail end of it on TV, but then they did the security footage after. He wants to tell stories differently, and he's willing to try stuff out and see what sticks and I think that makes the show way more interesting. It doesn't mean it's always gonna work, there might be sometimes it doesn't land, but we're trying different things and new things, and I think that's so important in wrestling. When it gets monotonous and repetitive, no matter how good the matches are and the promos are, if you feel like you've seen it before and it's okay, I've seen it before once. If you see a rematch once or twice, great. But there were times over I'd say, in 2008, 2009, and I was an avid fan. I would never miss any WWE shows, even when I was an independent wrestler traveling the world. But I started paying a lot less attention in 08/09 because I felt like this is literally the same thing every single week. There were times where even when I was here, like 2016, 2017 I felt like we just did this two weeks ago and now we're doing it again. To me, when it gets like that it's just not the way we need to do things. I think we need different things. There's new things. We need to try stuff, and it has to feel unpredictable and exciting." 

On getting approval to get the package piledriver back:

"Well, the package piledriver was something I've asked many times before, and it was always No, not right now, not today, doesn't work, can't do it. Until eventually it was, yeah, okay, let's do it. I didn't feel like hitting it on Randy was the best decision. I thought a normal piledriver was enough for Randy, because Randy is gigantic and quite frankly I didn't think I could get him up for the package piledriver, because of the way his body needs to be. He's just too massive. But yeah, and then Cody at Saturday Night's Main Event was the right time to do it. It was cool. I waited a long time to get to do that in WWE. And the funny part is I knew Penta was coming, and Penta was doing package piledriver and I was like, he better not get to do it before me, because I will lose my sh*t. But it all worked out."

What is Kevin Owens grateful for?

"My family, my friends and being at the right place right time."