One of the newest additions onto the WWE main event scene is Kevin Owens, who made his NXT debut back at Takeover: R-Evolution in December 2014 and on his first night in the company, attacked new NXT Champion Sami Zayn, immediately thrusting himself into the main event scene. Owens came into the company with a buzz around him, and anybody who has paid attention to the American independent wrestling scene knows that the buzz is well-deserved.
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Since then he has already become a two-time Intercontinental Champion and now WWE Universal Champion
Owens used to be known as “M.r Wrestling” Kevin Steen primarily throughout his days at Ring of Honor and PWG. He is a former ROH World Champion and ROH World Tag Team Champion.
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He has wrestled for various promotions on the independent circuit, most notably Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), where he is a former three-time holder of both the PWG World Championship and PWG World Tag Team Championship.Kevin is known for his great wrestling matches, but he’s known even more for being a part of great storylines and memorable moments.
For those that don’t know much about the former Kevin Steen/the current Kevin Owens, here are 10 things that you need to know before you watch Owens’s WWE career going forward.
1) He’s been wrestling since he was 16 years old
Steen first developed an interested in professional wrestling after watching a match between Shawn Michaels and Diesel at Wrestlemania XI at the age of 11.
He’s in the prime of his career and is a veteran of 15 years. After taking a shine on wrestling, he was finally allowed to start training with Serge Jordoin after three years. The following year he moved under Jacques Rougeau and has also trained under Terry Taylor whom he has called his “Main Trainer”. He made his official debut on his 16th birthday in L’Assomption, Quebec, Canada.
Steen trained with Rougeau and wrestled for Rougeau's promotion for four years before cutting his teeth in the Canadian wrestling scene, wrestling for such promotions as the International Wrestling Syndicate, Chaos Pro Wrestling, and Elite Wrestling Revolution. He didn’t wrestle in the United States until 2004 when he wrestled for the Jersey All Pro Wrestling company.
2) Has wrestled his entire career with a bad knee
Early in Owens’s career, he injured his knee in a match where his opponent screwed up a move and has had problems ever since. He’s had surgery on his knee multiple times but has never let his knee problems inhibit from his ring style as evident from his NXT debut against CJ Parker where he did a flipping dive from the ring to the outside.
Owens also parlayed his knee problems into a storyline in Ring of Honor in late 2009. Because of his well-documented chronic knee problems, he teased a promo about retiring from the wrestling business. Everybody who attended Final Battle 2009 in the Manhattan Center in New York City thought that Kevin was going to have his last match.
After losing a tag team match with El Generico against the Young Bucks, he had tears in his eyes as he said that this was probably it for him. He hugged Generico, then proceeded to kick him in the crotch, turning heel and sparking a one-year rivalry. It was Owens’s legitimate knee issues that made that segment so believable.
3) Learned speaking English from Jim Ross
Growing up in Quebec, which is predominantly a French-speaking province in Canada, it is only natural that his first language is French. Owens however, has learnt English and credits Jim Ross for helping him learn how to speak the language, something he has tweeted about before.
Owens, now a bilingual and fluent in both English and French, and he’s given promos in both languages depending on where he’s wrestling. When Ring of Honor had its debut in Montreal, Owens closed out the show and delivered a promo in French that had the fans on their feet. The second he went from English to French, the roof blew off the place.
4) He and Sami Zayn goes back a long way
If one could, they would write columns after columns on Owens history with Sami Zayn. Earlier it was Kevin Steen and El Generico, now its Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. They cut their teeth in the business together and also came to the States at roughly the same time.
They’ve been tag team partners and rivals in promotions like Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerilla, located out of Los Angeles, winning the tag team championships in both promotions. Their feud in Ring of Honor throughout 2010 was one of the best stories ROH has ever done, and Owens had said in interviews that he and Zayn wrote most of the feud themselves with minimal input from the booking team in ROH.
Needless to say, when Owens slammed Zayn’s head to the ground back at NXT Takeover, a lot of wrestling fans who knew the history between the two men knew that the NXT audience will be in for one hell of a ride.
5) He earned his full-time job in Ring of Honor because of one match
Like other WWE superstars Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, and Cesaro, Owens got his big break in the American wrestling scene through the Ring of Honor promotion. However, it wasn’t easy for Owens to get a full-time roster spot. He made his debut for the company in January 2005 in a Do-or-Die preshow event that took place before the main card where he defeated B-Boy in the main event.
He would wrestle sporadically for the company throughout the year, which ended in a match against El Generico in Philadelphia, PA, that was not well received by the crowd and left off the event DVD. He would only make one other appearance in the promotion after that match and wouldn’t appear again in ROH for more than a year.
In February 2007, ROH gave Steen (and El Generico) another chance with a tag team match against the current champions at the time, The Briscoe Brothers. Ironically, it took place in the same building in Philadelphia, PA where Steen had his match with Generico.
This time, the match was met with rave reviews, and both Steen and Generico were immediately hired to full-time ROH contracts, and booker Gabe Sapolsky had to scrap all other upcoming storylines and put them in a long-term program with Steen and Generico.
He spent seven years with ROH and had a fantastic career there where he and Generico won the tag team titles in 2008, he had the feud of the year against Generico in 2010, and he won the ROH World Championship in 2012.
6) Steve Austin is a big influence in his life
Before signing with WWE, Owens appeared on Stone Cold Steve Austin’s podcast last year. After telling Austin what an honor it was to be speaking with him, Owens told a story of a chance meeting with Austin more than 10 years ago that shaped him into the wrestler that he is today.
Owens ran into Austin at an airport, and the two struck up a short conversation about wrestling. As Austin left, Owens asked him for any advice. Austin said, “Never stop running your mouth, kid.” And Kevin never did.
Owens promos are different than anybody else in the business. He speaks with such fire and passion without a filter to keep in check that it sometimes backfires turning out to be humorous. Owens is a natural on the mic and it’s this promo style of his that has endeared him to his fans.
7) He has got the moves and lots of it
He may not be the man of 1,000 or 1,004 holds, but Kevin Owens has a tremendous arsenal of moves. Some of Owens’s best moves are his suplex into a knee, the powerbomb on the apron which is being sold as a kill move in NXT, a pop-up powerbomb which is his finisher in NXT, a flying senton bomb off the top rope that he will most likely break out in special situation, a cannonball in the corner, and his finishing move in Ring of Honor, the Package Piledriver, which will most likely never be showcased in the WWE.
8) Is a Family Man
Owens has made no secret about his wife and kids at home. In fact, he showcases them frequently on his social media account. He has been married for some time now with a 8-year-old son named Owen (presumably named after Owen Hart, and the reason why Kevin Steen became Kevin Owens in the WWE) and a newborn daughter named Elodie.
Owens’s family has been both eluded to and actually used in professional wrestling storylines. In Pro Wrestling Guerilla, Kevin gave three package piledrivers to Excalibur after he called his son ugly and had his seven-month-old son pin the wrestler. In NXT, Owens claims that he’ll fight anybody because he’s fighting for his family at home.
9) Is easily accessible to his fans
Owens is well known as one of the more fan-friendly wrestlers in the business. He is extremely approachable at shows and converses with his more than 100,000 followers on Twitter. Kevin is also notorious for pointing out bad grammar, which Twitter has in abundance.
When Owens was working the independents, he would design and sell t-shirts that fans could buy, and when they bought the shirts, they were dealing directly with Kevin and no middleman. It’s a business model that he learned from Colt Cabana, who is also big on do-it-yourself merchandising.
10) The Future of the WWE
NXT has produced talents who are no doubt be the future of the WWE, and Kevin Owens is one of them, along with Sami Zayn, Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Sasha Banks and Charlotte. He may even be at the top of the list.
Last night, Owens finally won a world championship on the main roster when he defeated Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Big Cass to become the second ever WWE Universal Champion.This shows the company’s faith in him as they’re elevating him to being the face of the New Era.
