Kevin Owens to WWE wasn’t a sure thing at one point.
WWE star Kevin Owens recently appeared on the TVA Sports’ Les Anti-Pod De La Lutte podcast and would delve the importance of his time in Ring Of Honor, where he was a staple of the company from 2007 before his arrival in NXT in 2014.
“It’s funny cause I often ask myself that same question. Of course, it gave me a very important platform in the United States. But at the end of the day, William Regal saw me at a PWG show. And even before I started full time with ROH in 2007, I had a good name on the indies because of PWG. So sometimes I wonder if things would have not become what they became with ROH, if I would have made it to WWE anyway. Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know. But at the same time, there was a point in my career where I thought ROH would be where I would spend my whole career. Even if my goal was always to go with WWE, there’s was a point in my life where I had my son and my wife, and I was thinking that travelling so much like I would have had to do in WWE was not the best thing for me, so I was thinking that the more time I can make a living working ROH, that’s what I would do. However, with time, my priorities changed a little, my family’s priorities changed a little, and that’s when WWE became my goal again. So ROH was a big influence and a huge part of my career, but I often wonder if ROH would have not been part of my career, if I would have made it to WWE anyway. A huge part of me thinks so. That said, I have plenty of good and fun memories with ROH, and I’m very happy to have been apart of ROH for all those years.”
Owens then offered up the reason WWE stars, didn’t send video promos to ROH for their Final Battle pay-per-view earlier this month, when members of AEW and IMPACT Wrestling both sent in some thank you messages to the company.
“The answer is quite simple: Ring of Honor didn’t ask any wrestlers from WWE to do that, nor contacted anyone at WWE. I knew it was going to be their last show, but I didn’t think to send a video so they could play it at the show. I’ve watched it. I was at a WWE show, and I was watching it on my phone, so it was not something I simply ignored. I’ve read some people on the Internet saying that probably WWE didn’t let us do it, but that’s incorrect. It’s just ROH who didn’t ask us, and I bet that if they had, we could have done it, but that wasn’t the case.”
(h/t to PWInsider for the transcriptions)
The full interview, which is in French, can be viewed by clicking HERE.
Related: Kevin Owens Re-Signs With WWE
