Awesome / Kevin Owens

• The Steen vs. Generico matches from PWG and Ring of Honor are all, each one of them, excellent matches. Special note to their Fight Without Honor at Final Battle 2010, one of the most blood-soaked pieces of brilliance ever created, and their Ladder War at Final Battle 2012: Doomsday, where Steen hits Generico with a package piledriver off one ladder into two stacked ladders to retain his championship.
• This Ring of Honor promo against one of Kevin Steen's worst enemies, Jim Cornette. Despite Steen being a heel, the Ring of Honor fans got firmly behind Steen, partly because of moments like this.
• Do yourself a favor and find the promo Kevin cut for PWG with the The Young Bucks and Adam Cole. While fun is had with Kevin's digs at El Generico, his assertion that Adam Cole is a piece of shit and it takes one to know one, and apologizing to the Young Bucks for swearing (because they're "good Christian boys"), the entire promo is 3 minutes of vicious heel perfection. It's also the promo where he called himself "the champion of the universe".
• After winning a Fatal Four Way against Jay Lethal, Michael Elgin, and Tommaso Ciampa to get a title shot at the ROH World Championship, Kevin Steen delivers one of his most infamous promos: "The bottom line is, when I get that title shot, the Kevin Steen who's coming for it? It's not Fight Steen Fight. It's Kill Steen Kill!"
• Takeover: R-Evolution was a one-two punch for Owens. First there's his debut, where the crowd is quiet for his then-unfamiliar entrance music, but as soon as "KO" and "FIGHT" are shown on the Titantron, a huge cheer goes up. This builds to a roar as Owens enters, debuting in WWE after ten years on the indy circuit. He then proceeds to curbstomp CJ Parker, stunning the Full Sail crowd with a tope con hilo (which many indy fans recognize, but would not be a move you'd associate with a man of his size if you'd never seen him wrestle before) and a pop-up powerbomb for the decisive win. He then comes back out after Sami Zayn's NXT title win, congratulating his longtime best friend and greatest rival... before slamming him to the ground and powerbombing him onto the ring apron, cementing a long-expected, but fast-executed heel turn.
  Crowd: (after the tope) HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!
  Owens: (laughing, to the camera) This is just the beginning.
• Before the first NXT Brooklyn event, Kevin is out to deliver one more promo for his NXT title ladder match with Finn Balor, and as soon as he mentions Brooklyn, the Full Sail crowd boos hard (because this would be the first time a NXT pay-per-view would be held away from Full Sail University and the fans weren't happy about it). Owens goes off on the crowd, brilliantly pointing out their hypocrisy in wanting NXT to grow but not to break out into bigger arenas and audiences just because they don't want to have to watch the pay-per-view at home for once, and slamming them with a brutal insult, calling them the "John Cena of wrestling fans".
• Owens' entire debut on May 18th's RAW. How do you top Sami Zayn's messy-but-good push by Cena? By coming out in response to John Cena's "US Open Challenge," insulting most of the audience, responding to Cena's "The Reason You Suck" Speech with a blunt Shut Up, Kirk! retort...followed by a one-hit-KO from a pop-up powerbomb. THEN Owens rubs it all in by literally stomping on the US Championship belt while raising the NXT Championship up above it, and wraps up by taunting the unconscious Cena with his own "you can't see me" gesture. To put it in perspective, this is the equivalent of a C-list comic book villain mouthing off to Superman, drop-kicking the Man of Steel, then pissing on his cape. And it was AWESOME.
• To ramp it up, the actual match he had against Cena at Elimination Chamber, where he gives Cena everything he has, including moonsaults, cannonball sentons, stealing the Attitude Adjustment, an avalanche Death Valley Driver, teasing the package piledriver, and to top it all off, beating John Cena cleanly. And he even got a moment to mouth off after the match to rub it in. Yeah, the internet basically exploded.
  • And when he got on the mic after the match? He quoted Cena's own entrance theme at him.
  • Cena himself gets a CMOA in that match, earning praise for doing the job and making a younger star look like a million bucks.
• The arc of his rise through the company and just how fast everything happened: Signed a contract in August 2014, debuted on NXT television in December, won the NXT Title two months later in February 2015, made his RAW debut and defeated John Cena, clean, on PPV, in his first main roster match, as a heel in May of 2015. That's 9 months from signing his contract to debuting on RAW, and six from first NXT appearance to first main roster appearance - a feat that probably no one else in WWE's developmental has duplicated. Oh, and by the way, his short developmental run impressed WWE brass so much that they threw out the contract he signed less than a year ago and gave him a new one - with main roster money. In all likelihood, too, he'll be defending the US Title, or at least wrestling in a high-profile match at SummerSlam in front of tens of thousands. Now that's awesome.
  • On a kayfabe level, his Evil Plan that he outlined at his introduction worked. Arrive, fight, destroy, profit.
• The fact that he felt the need to call out Sasha Banks' tactic of taunting Bayley's biggest fan Izzy during their Takeover: Respect Iron Woman match as disgusting falls under a degree between this and heartwarming. Either Steen was honestly caught in the moment and repulsed due to legitimate compassion towards Izzy, or he figured on the fly that it was a brilliant heel tactic that he knew the Owens character (who's motivated in part by providing for his wife and more importantly his son) could disapprove of so as to further shine a spotlight on it and thus help Sasha's villain cred.
• Winning his first main-roster WWE championship at Night of Champions by beating Ryback to win the Intercontinental Championship!
• Regardless of Mark Henry's spot in 2015, it was nonetheless an amazing sight when Owens pop-up powerbombed the 400+ lbs "World's Strongest Man!"
• The 2016 Royal Rumble and his Last Man Standing match against Dean Ambrose was an indy fan's dream - Kevin Steen vs. Jon Moxley, which never happened due to both men being heels and never working for the same promotion concurrently. Owens and Ambrose had the crowd in the palm of their hands for over twenty minutes, and while Ambrose retained, Owens nearly had him over a dozen times and took a sick bump through two stacked tables. Not to mention both men entered the Rumble match itself later that night.
• Owens vs. Zayn, Battleground 2016. When Owens and Zayn get into a ring together, awesome usually happens - but this time the two longtime friends/rivals managed to elevate their game to a completely new plateau. Certainly the best match Owens has had that year, and arguably the best match he's had of his WWE career.
• On the 8/29/16 edition of RAW, in the waning moments of the Fatal 4-Way Match between him, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Big Cass for the WWE Universal Championship, he finally became a WWE champion, with the help of Triple H, and received a "You Deserve It" ovation from the crowd.
  • Also, indy fans noted a past promo in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla where Kevin had declared himself the "champion of the universe". Apparently, Kevin Owens might be Nostradamus.
• While their Smackdown run seemed to have them mired in an endless feud with Shane McMahon, Kevin and Sami showing up at the Raw after WrestleMania 34 was a fresh start. They proceeded to have a match against each other for the "sole contract", where Kevin attempts a brainbuster off the top rope (which was Generico's move), and despite the countout, pulled a standing ovation out of the normally smarky crowd.
• The 5/14 episode of Raw showcased Kevin wrestling not once, not twice, but counting the dark match for the London crowd, three times. First, he and Seth Rollins had the match of the night for Seth's Intercontinental title. Then, after stealing Jinder Mahal's spot in a Money in the Bank qualifying match, he beat Bobby Lashley and Elias to win the last spot on the Raw side (with some help from Sami, of course). Then he teamed up with Zayn and Elias to take on Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Lashley and wrestled in that match, too.
• Money in the Bank 2018 and Extreme Rules 2018 were both largely lackluster shows, an exception being Kevin's performance on each of them. Money in the Bank saw him taking a bump through a table off a 20-foot ladder, which was fairly spectacular. He one-upped himself at Extreme Rules, paying homage to Mick Foley by being thrown off the top of a steel cage and going through the announcer's table below.
• On the 7/2 episode of Smackdown, Kevin Owens verbally handed the insufferable Dolph Ziggler his ass not once but twice, then rounded off the night by giving him a Stunner and screaming that Smackdown is "MY GODDAMN SHOW!".
  Kevin: Oh, a hot dog eating contest? Cute. You know, if I did enter a hot dog eating contest, I would win, which is more than you can say about wrestling matches.
  • Then KO tops Ziggler's humiliation off in their last-minute match at Extreme Rules 2019. Bell rings...Ziggler jaw-jacks with Owens...KICK, WHAM, STUNNER...three count. All in 17 seconds. It was SO absolute that even heel announcer Corey Graves openly admitted that Ziggler's done jack since his return earlier in the year.
• July 9th, 2019: Pipebomb 2.0, directed at his Arch-Enemy Shane McMahon.
  CUT THE MUSIC! I've got something to say. Last week, I came out here and I spoke the truth about Dolph Ziggler, but it looks like tonight someone else needs to hear the truth, and that's Shane McMahon. Now I've sat back and tried to be a good guy, a good company guy and not piss anyone off for too long and I'm done with that. It doesn't get me ANYTHING, so you know what? A while ago, I watched the entire McMahon family come out here in this ring and say 'hey from now on, we're gonna listen to the fans and give the audience what they want'. But the only thing that's happened since then is Shane McMahon has gotten more power, more authority, and more TV time than anyone, and trust me when I say NOBODY WATCHING EVER WANTED THAT! And now we have to sit back, every week on every show, and listen to Shane McMahon call himself the best in the world, and every time that happens, it makes me sick! It makes me want to come out here and smash my head against this stupid table! (Shane appears.) Oh! Oh, good, you're here. You need to hear this. You, this, is the biggest load of crap I've ever seen. I've been watching WWE my whole life- (mic is cut off, grabs another) HEY GUESS WHAT IDIOT, THERE'S MORE THAN ONE MICROPHONE AND I'M NOT DONE. You know, every time you call yourself the best in the world, that is an insult and a slap to the face to every single person in the back! Every person in the locker room who breaks their back, week in and week out, on TV, on the road, around the world, to be WWE superstars! It makes me sick, it makes everybody sick! When you call yourself the best in the world, me and everybody else is thinking that you can kiss my ass! Because that ring does not belong to you! (mic cut again, grabs Byron Saxton's headset) I'M NOT DONE! I would NEVER call myself the best in the world, but there's a dozen people back there who have that legitimate claim. And you take up TV time from Apollo Crews, Mustafa Ali, Liv Morgan, Buddy Murphy, Asuka, AOP, Kairi Sane- (cut off by security and escorted from the ring)
• October 4th, 2019: During the SmackDown premiere on Fox, Kevin Owens defeats Shane McMahon in a Career vs. Career ladder match, thus finally bringing Shane's reign of terror to an end.
  Kevin: Hey Shane, you'rrrre firrrred!!
• While the buildup to Survivor Series 2019 has involved Triple H attempting to lure Kevin back to NXT, he was probably the very last person expected to show up at Takeover: War Games III as the fourth member of Team Ciampa. Not only did Chicago come unglued when his music hit, but Kevin pulled out both the Stunner AND the package piledriver to help his team get the win.
• The one feud to truly take advantage of having a completely silent arena leading up to and including Wrestlemania has been Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins.
  • The promos have been sheer art in how well they've been delivered, playing with tone and facial expressions and interaction in a way that isn't possible in a loud, chaotic arena. Kevin dialed up the vulnerability brought on by Seth's interference in his matches and jabs about his lack of wins at Wrestlemania.
  • The match itself took advantage of the lack of crowd in the best way - by having Kevin revert to his Ring of Honor heel persona and Seth doing his whiny heel thing, where neither of them are anywhere near capable of shutting up. They followed each move with nuanced trash talk and mockery, making for a hugely entertaining match. When Seth knocks him down with the ring bell for a DQ win, Kevin gets on the mic and refuses to take the win. He wants to beat Seth within an inch of his life, does so, and caps it all off by elbow-dropping off the Wrestlemania sign with no crowd in attendance to even justify it. To say that Kevin Owens has earned his "Wrestlemania Moment" is an understatement.
• The first competitor to seriously step up to heel Roman Reigns (other than Jey Uso, and it hasn't worked out so well for him, having been savagely beaten down by his cousin over and over and turned into his errand boy) is now Kevin Owens. On paper, it's an excellent feud, with Kevin the long-time family man and babyface trying desperately to do things "the right way" now absolutely loathing what Roman claims he's doing in the name of his family. In practice, while longtime fans may have predicted the emergeance of Kevin's "Kill Steen Kill" mode, we got it a lot sooner than expected. After stopping Jey's attempt to "teach [Owens] to fear [Roman]" via a steel chair to the back, Kevin grabs his own chair and tees off on Jey over and over, calling out Roman through the camera:
  Kevin: ARE YOU WATCHING, ROMAN? HUH? Cause I've been watching you! THIS IS YOUR FAMILY. WHERE ARE YOU? This is happening to your family because of you! You want people to fear you? I. FEAR. NO ONE. (gives Jey five chair shots in a row, then looks back at him, then at the camera) Roman, you got a problem with me? Come say it to my face. COME FIND ME!
• It's hard to have an exciting match at the Royal Rumble, because everyone's hyped for the actual Rumble matches themselves. Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns put on a vicious and at-times horrifying Last Man Standing match for the Universal Championship at the 2021 Rumble. After weeks of Roman insulting his family, Kevin had clearly had enough, and spent much of the first part of the match beating Roman to a pulp using the entire arena as his playground. The spots were insane - Kevin got run over by Roman in a golf cart and STILL managed to get up, then pulled off a Swanton bomb onto Roman from the top of a forklift, then finally cuffed Roman to the entranceway pylon, only losing because Roman had first knocked out the referee and then had Paul Heyman come running in with the key to the handcuffs. It took being choked out cold in Roman's guillotine for Kevin to stop getting up.
• Kevin Owens vs. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at Night 1 of WrestleMania 38. Not only did Kevin fight the man who he grew up watching on his television, he did it as the last match of the night. He main evented WrestleMania, a feat not many would ever hope of getting.
• Elimination Chamber 2023 has just ended with Sami Zayn and Roman having a tenacious match that concluded in the latter's victory. Naturally, the Tribal Chief and his fellow heels decide to kick him while he's down... and who should come bursting out of the arena to the rescue but Kevin himself, and he single-handedly beats the Bloodline bloody to rescue his longtime frenemy, while overcoming Paul Heyman's attempts to turn the tide in Roman's favor, with Sami leveling Roman with one last Helluva Kick to end the carnage. Even if Roman came out on top, Kevin made sure his night ended in a disaster.
• Not only did Kevin Owens main-event the first night of WrestleMania 39 with his best friend Sami Zayn against The Usos, but the long-time frenemies won the Undisputed Tag Team Titles! It's even sweeter for Kevin because thanks to his match against Stone Cold Steve Austin, it meant he main-evented WrestleMania two years in a row. Furthermore, Owens became Grand Slam Champion AND the match impressed Dave Meltzer so much that he rated it five-stars, the first for all four men.

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