Kevin Owens Details How He Found His Identity in WWE

Kevin Owens has been the star of the wrestling world over the past several weeks. After he made his “Monday Night Raw” debut two weeks ago, it was announced he would face WWE United States Champion John Cena at the upcoming “Elimination Chamber” pay-per-view. Many believed this would be the start of his main roster run.

Soon enough, Owens had replaced the injured-Rusev in most live event listings, and was advertised for all “RAW” tapings throughout the summer. It was then confirmed Friday he had indeed signed a main roster deal, and would be transitioning out of NXT shortly.

In the newest edition of the “Talk is Jericho” podcast with Chris Jericho, Owens opens up about his wrestling career to this point. In one particular section, he talks about finding his identity and look as he was debuting for NXT and WWE. Below is a transcription of the story.

Owens detailed how he had was asked to be part of a photo shoot for some of NXT’s stars, but he had yet to debut or even figured out his name or look. He initially was set to wrestle in a singlet, something he did in the early portions of his independent scene career. After being frustrated with his appearance, he stumbled into a fellow NXT star who told him to be himself:

“I remember Enzo Amore…he was one of the first guys to welcome me here and he was pretty happy I was here because he was looking forward to sharing a locker room with me. He was up there too with me getting ready to take the pictures, and I look at him and I go, ‘ah, I look ridiculous.’ And he was like ‘bro, cut the sleeves off that Guns N’ Roses shirt, put your shorts on and go down there. I’m like, alright, I’m doing it. So I did it.” 

He was then told since it had the band image on it, he had to turn it inside-out, which was just black. He felt it looked stupid, and saw one of his co-NXT rookies nearby:

“I saw Fergal painting himself, because he was doing the body paint, and I just used some of Fergal’s paint and I like splattered the word ‘fight’ on my shirt, and that’s how it kind of happened. The grungy kind of look, which ended up transforming itself into the duct tape shirt I have now. And that’s basically how it came about. And because I chose to be who I was, and [WWE employee] Chris Chambers was taking the pictures and taking the footage, and he really liked the way it looked. And it just kind of snow-balled into here I am. And that’s how I made my debut, looking like that.”

Ultimately, he felt this would be his look going forward:

“This is how I feel comfortable, this is how I feel like I should be presented. So sticking to my guns and being myself is really what helped.”

More from the interview with Jericho can be found here.

Editor’s Note

This is a great interview with Jericho all should listen too. Very genuine.

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