Kevin Owens Says It's "All Downhill From Here" After Steve Austin WrestleMania Match
As a guest on the latest episode of WWE After the Bell with Corey Graves, former WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens reflected on his WrestleMania 38 Night One main event match with Stone Cold Steve Austin. As someone who idolized The Rattlesnake throughout his entire career, Owens mentioned how big of a highlight that moment in Dallas, Texas was for his career and why he doesn't think anything he'll ever do in wrestling will be able to top it.
"It's all downhill from here really," Owens said. "And I say that with the most optimistic point of view I can have really, I mean that in a good way. It was really unbelievable, it's still unbelievable. Sometimes I'll have my moments where I'm not doing anything and I'm just sitting around, and I'll pull it up on my phone and I'll specifically watch the moment where the ref rings the bell. I still can't' believe it happened, it's really hard to process what happened, it's hard to put it into words."
Continuing to talk about WrestleMania 38, Kevin Owens revealed what it was like backstage before their match and what Austin was doing to prepare. The WWE superstar also looked back on his career and continued to reiterate the point that he doesn't think there will be a moment that tops his match with Steve Austin.
"At one point, right before we went out, I caught a glimpse of him just pacing back and forth," Owens said. "He looked like a caged lion just ready to murder people, and I was like, oh man, this is going to be wild. It's really all very surreal, it's very hard to put into words, that's so cliche when we talk about what we do. As I said, I get these moments where I just start reflecting on my career, and I was thinking how crazy it was when I started with Cena and how people around me were like, this is unbelievable.
"The one I'll always hear is that you outlive any expectations any of us ever had for you. Everyone knows if you look at me, I don't fit the stereotypical WWE superstar, a lot of people thought [WWE] would never take two looks at me. I got signed, which people were surprised by, then I won the NXT title two months in. 'What the hell's going on?'
"Then I show up on RAW and attack John Cena, now I'm wrestling Cena on a pay-per-view and I won. Then I won the Universal title, it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and then I beat the s*** out of Vince McMahon on TV. Somehow, it keeps getting topped. But I don't know what tops this..."
As far as what's next for Steve Austin after wrestling his first match in 19 years, the Texas Rattlesnake said he'd be open to coming back for WrestleMania 39 to be involved in some capacity.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE After the Bell with Corey Graves with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.