Newly crowned WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens spoke with Slam Sports about his WWE career and more. Owens admitted that things moved quickly in his career as he moved to Florida, was in NXT for a couple of months and then was called up to the main roster. Owens believed that when he first got to NXT, he would be called up to RAW in six months.
“It’s hard to say that I didn’t see it happening. Nobody can really predict that things would go this fast, right? But I remember when my wife and I moved to Florida, with our kids, in August of 2014. I was told, ‘You’re going to be held off NXT for a couple of months because we already have Hideo [Itami] and Finn [Balor] debuting, we don’t want all you guys debuting at the same time.’ I’m like, ‘That’s fine.’ My wife, she was more than willing to move to Florida, but obviously leaving our families behind was a tough choice. So we were discussing what we were going to do if you ever — at this point was just if, it wasn’t even when, because when I was hired I was told, ‘Don’t get your hopes up for Raw and SmackDown, you’re going to get a chance in NXT, but who knows what’s going to happen’ — get called up to the main roster. Are we going to stay in Florida or are we going to move back to Montreal? What’s easier for Owen and his school? I said, ‘Well, honestly, I feel like once I start on NXT,’ I told my wife, which is a very bold statement to make, but I said, ‘Give me six months and I’m going to be on the main roster.’ And she was like, ‘Well, that would be nice, but.’ I’m not saying like if that happens then we can move back to Montreal because Owen will only have been away a year. he’ll still have his friends at his other school, he could just pick up right where he left off. Lo and behold, six months later, I started in December in NXT and in May I was on the main roster,” he said. “In a weird way, I predicted it. I don’t know how, but I was dead on. I remember thinking sooner rather than later I’m going to be WWE champion. I didn’t have a precise timetable for it, like I did with the NXT call-up thing, but I really did think it was going to come sooner than later, and here we are. I guess that’s just faith in myself and my ability. As far as an explanation why it did happen, I don’t know. Obviously somebody somewhere likes what I do, and that’s good enough for me.”
The 2016 Survivor Series pay-per-view event takes place in November and will be in Toronto, Canada. Owens stated that he hopes he can be in the main event pf the show as Universal Champion.
“As soon as I heard that Survivor Series was coming to Toronto, I remember thinking, ‘OK, I want to main event that pay-per-view against the champion.’ Now, things have obviously changed a little and I’m the champion. So I definitely want to main event that pay-per-view and defend the title. There are cities … all over the world that when you go there, there’s just something extra in the air. There’s something special. It gets you a little more pumped up for the match and just a little more pumped up for the show. Toronto is definitely one of them. A lot of it has to do with the crowd reception and how people receive us. Toronto is always great with that. And I’ve been to Air Canada Centre to watch WWE pay-per-views. I was there for SummerSlam in 2004. I’ve been to that building to watch WWE before. Now to be performing in that building on a pay-per-view, hopefully main eventing it for the title, of course that’s something I’m looking forward to.”
Owens also talked about winning the Universal Title and more. You can read the entire interview here.
