Kevin Owens On Wild WWE Crown Jewel Brawl: 'I Think I Broke My Ribs, But I Walked Out'
Though their match never got officially underway, that didn't stop Kevin Owens and Randy Orton from brawling around the Mohammed Abdo Arena at WWE Crown Jewel. At one point, "The Viper" slammed a chair across Owens' back, before sending Owens crashing onto the announce desk. Owens, always priding himself on fighting back, eventually seized the upper hand, so much so that he left Orton unable to walk out on his own after elbowing him through a table.
"I never wanted any of this," Owens told backstage interviewer Cathy Kelley in an X video, post-brawl. "I never even wanted this match. Yeah, the match didn't really happen, did it? But that's okay. You see Randy walk out? No, because he didn't walk out; he was wheeled out. You know what we did? We walked out of that accident we were in. I'm sure Randy Orton feels even worse than we did after, feels worse than I do now. I think I broke my ribs, but I walked out. Yeah, I got what I wanted."
As Owens' alluded to, this wasn't the first time he got hurt within the last week. While exploring the scenes in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Owens previously noted that he was involved in a dune buggy accident, which he claims to be a result of either Orton or Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes paying the driver to do so.
Seeing Rhodes' alliance with Roman Reigns at WWE Bad Blood, Owens felt betrayed. As such, he later attacked both Rhodes and Orton, the latter of whom seemed forgiving of Rhodes' decision. Owens, a long-time enemy of Reigns', however, was evidently not so forgiving.