Kevin Owens On When He Found Out He Was Winning WWE Universal Title, Relationship With Vince, HHH
On episode 281 of Talk Is Jericho, WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens talked about when he found out he was winning WWE Monday Night RAW's top prize, how Triple H handing him the championship on RAW was a fitting moment, and whether he has a good relationship with Vince McMahon.
According to Owens, he found out he was winning the Universal title around 5 pm on the night he won. For 'K.O.', Triple H handing him the championship on RAW was "poetic" insofar as Triple H was the person behind-the-scenes who always believed in him.
"It couldn't have been better, but not just for storyline purposes, the 'where do we go from here?', 'why did Triple H do it?', 'what's going to happen with Seth [Rollins] and Triple H?', this and that. It obviously opens a lot of doors for interesting stuff TV-wise. But for me personally, when you win the world title, people assume, 'oh, you probably want it to be this incredible battle where you claw, blood, sweat, and tears, and you just had this apparent moment.' Besides the fact that I'm a heel, Triple H got me here. He made the call to hire me. He made the call to take a chance on me because he hired somebody who wasn't a cookie cutter WWE Superstar. And there would have been a chance where somebody would have been like, 'you hired him? Are you kidding?'
"Even when I was hired, I was told by [WWE Senior Director or Talent Development] Canyon Ceman who called me to announce 'okay, we're going to sign you, but I was specifically told to tell you don't get your hopes up for RAW or SmackDown because you're not the typical WWE Superstar. You're going to have a chance in NXT just like everyone else.' So I said, 'oh, I'm up for the challenge' and he said, 'I figured that's what you were going to say'. That's how my career started here and then Triple H always obviously believed in me. That's why he signed me and he saw something in me. And Terry Taylor even straight up told me once at the Performance Center, he was like, 'Triple H sees something in you. I don't see it, but it's my job to bring it out.' And then, later on, like, now, I have a great relationship with Terry. But part of why I love it is because he's so honest. Other people really dislike that about Terry. I love it. So anyway, last Monday night, Triple H literally handing me the title, but that was a moment, like, that was incredible to me and I got to say 'thank you' in the ring. Like, he gave me the title and I said, 'thank you', but it wasn't 'thank you for giving me the title'. It was 'thank you for everything'. Yeah, because without him, like, I had Steve Austin saying good things about me [and] I even had The Rock saying good things about me before I got signed by WWE. But without Triple H taking that chance, who knows where I'd be now?"
'The Canadian Cannonball' divulged that he has a positive relationship with WWE's Chairman. Owens believes that McMahon's accomplishments are intimidating, but he really is not intimidating as a person.
"I think we have a good one though. I haven't talked to him as much. I guess I talk to him more than most guys do, I guess. But that's only because I make a point of going in there when I have a question instead of letting my producer do it because people like [Jericho], or John [Cena], or Randy [Orton] have told me, 'what are you sending someone else for?'" Owens continued, "the thing about it is he's intimidating because he's Vince. But once you get in there, he's not intimidating. He's not trying to intimidate anybody. What's intimidating about him is everything he [has] done and who he is as a person and what he represents. Exactly, but once you get in there, you're just talking to a guy who's cracking jokes about him and Linda being married for 50 years and 'oh God, how did she put up with me for that long?'"
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Source: Talk Is Jericho