Backstage Notes On WWE Talents Being Upset With Kevin Owens And Sami Zayn, Owens - Randy Orton Beef

By Marc Middleton

As noted, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were sent home from the WWE European tour after last week's SmackDown in Manchester, England, after it was reported that they went against a creative decision and "went into business for themselves" after Sami's loss to Kofi Kingston. The two returned to work this Tuesday for the Survivor Series go-home edition of SmackDown in Charlotte, NC.

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The Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes that there was a plan, at least as far as Vince McMahon and others were concerned, for Owens to attack Kofi after his win over Sami, leading to Big E and Xavier Woods making the save to beat up Sami & Owens. The plan was for Owens and Sami to then run off, leading to the tag match that took place this week. The post-match angle went as planned except for Owens and Sami sticking around for the beatdown. Owens and Sami were reportedly yelled at backstage by WWE officials and sent home.

There was another version of the story going around, which said the entire incident was a big misunderstanding and that Owens and Sami did what they thought they were supposed to do. There were people that vehemently denied the misunderstanding claims and the general feeling among the talents was that Owens and Sami went into business for themselves, and they were seen as the bad guys.

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On a related note, there was a Twitter beef between Owens and Randy Orton over the weekend that was rooted in legitimacy more than the usual social media exchanges are. A lot of the SmackDown talents were upset with Owens and Sami with what happened at SmackDown last week. While the rest of the roster was wrapping the tour, Owens was posting on social media to show family-related things he was doing. It came out that Owens was somewhere where a wedding was taking place, and that got back to the wrestlers in Europe.

The story is that a fan tweeted about getting married at Epcot in Orlando on November 11th. Owens happened to be taking his family to Epcot that day and decided to surprise the fan at his wedding reception. The groom later tweeted about meeting Owens, who was invited to the wedding reception for dessert. Orton saw that tweet and that's when the exchange began. The Observer notes that there's a rule of thumb when it comes to engaging Owens on Twitter because he's seen as the king of comebacks, but Orton didn't care. You can see their exchange below:

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Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

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