Kevin Owens is just a day away from stepping into the ring to challenge Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes for the title.
In the past, Owens has been open about not enjoying his reign as the Universal Champion, a reign that started with the help of Triple H before he took over Goldberg in early 2017 to drop the title. The reason for that is that he does not enjoy the moment but looks ahead.
While speaking with CBS Sports’ Shakiel Mahjouri, Owens admitted that this mindset existed not just during his Universal Title reign but throughout the early stages of his WWE career.
“It’s natural to want to be on WrestleMania in the biggest way possible and winning titles. It’s still an accolade that’s incredibly flattering. Incredibly deserving and rewarding. But I think what helped me be less obsessed, I guess, by that aspect of it is from 2015 to 2018, 2019—that’s all I could think about. That was when I was champion all the time. I was Intercontinental Champion, I was US Champion, I was the Universal Champion, and I was never happy. Never happy. I always wanted to do more. I wanted the next week to be bigger. I’d finish a match and think, ‘Okay, what’s next week now?’ And you know, the people I’d speak to were like, ‘I don’t know, we don’t know what’s next week, we’ll figure it out.’ You know what I mean?
And I really didn’t enjoy any of it as much as I should have. I went away and had double knee surgery in 2018. I spent five months at home, away from it, and I think that really helped me put things in perspective. I really needed to get that time away because at that time, I’d been on the road for four years with WWE, and it’s like a train. You get on, and you just don’t get off. You don’t realize how quickly time passes. When I went away, I talked to a lot of people about how it was really hard for me to shut it off and just not be consumed by wrestling all the time. I actually remember one of the very useful talks I had was with Shawn Michaels. I called him out of the blue, and he was kind enough to listen to me, and he just kind of helped me. He told me in a lot of ways, throughout his career, he was a lot like me, always obsessed with what’s next, not enjoying the ride.
Just hearing it from somebody I looked up to so much just kind of helped me let go of that. And since then, I’ll still have my moments where I get swept up, but I’m able to pull back, go like, ‘Hey, this is pretty incredible.’ Maybe it’s not perfect, or maybe it’s not the way you think it should be sometimes, but come on. That’s been very helpful. Since then, that change of perspective. I’ve been in the ring with Stone Cold [Steve Austin]. I’ve won the Tag Titles at WrestleMania with my best friend [Sami Zayn] allegedly. It’s worked out all right. I was in the ring at WrestleMania this year with Randy Orton, just mind-blowing stuff.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Shakiel Mahjouri with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
