Kevin Owens on Being WWE Universal Champion, Who Greeted Him Backstage After the Win, Family

WWE Universal Champion and proud Canadian Kevin Owens sat down with Slam Sports to promote Survivor Series and WWE’s pay-per-view return to the Great White North. The full interview is at this link and below are some of the key highlights:

Thinking about family when he first won the title on RAW:

“My parents could have told me when I was 12 years old and telling them I wanted to be a wrestler that it was silly and to be serious and find something more secure and safe, but they didn’t. They pushed me as hard as they could. My wife, she’s been with me for 10 years,” Owens said. “She saw the ups and the downs and she saw so many people tell me I would never make it to WWE, but she never doubted it. My kids put up with their dad being gone a lot. My daughter’s two so she’s not super aware of it, she’s just happy when I come back, but my son’s eight, he’s seen me do this his whole life. He knows how much it means to me, he knows how much I enjoy it. I don’t know if it’s going to stick, but for now, he looks like that’s what he wants to do, too. He’s very tolerant of the sacrifices we have to make in order for me to do this, and he really enjoys WWE itself, so that certainly helps. Without them, I just wouldn’t be here.”

“I also had a thought for my grandfathers. I have their initials tattooed on my knuckles. They were both really big wrestling fans. My dad’s father would take me to WWE shows when I was younger and my other grandfather, my mom’s dad, would watch wrestling with me at the house. They just really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, they both passed away before I signed with WWE. The tattoos on my knuckles are just kind of a way to keep them with me at all times. I really wish they were there to see this moment, but I definitely thought of them.”

What it means to be champion:

“To win the WWE Universal title, which in essence (is) the same title that Shawn Michaels or Steve Austin held — there’s the WWE World title on SmackDown, but for Raw, the premiere championship is the WWE Universal title — it’s really hard to put into words how that moment felt. That title is as big as anything I’ve achieved in wrestling. I’m going to do everything I can and whenever my title run ends, which I’m not looking to be anytime soon, people will look back and say, ‘Kevin Owens really made that title mean something.’”

Sami Zayn and others who greeted him backstage after the win:

“There were a couple of people. The first one, I don’t want to just say who it is, but I think people can figure it out. It was very emotional because in a lot of ways, we both achieved this. I don’t know how to describe that. It’s our title, in a way, if that makes any sense.”

“It’s a special moment to get to tell Vince McMahon that you’re not going to regret this and have him say, ‘I’m sure I won’t.’ It was just really something. Jimmy Jacobs, who I’m not sure would be very happy that I mentioned him in this, he works for WWE now and he was there and that was another pretty special moment because he’s seen it from the start, from the moment I got hired until now, he’s there with me every week. We were really close before we got to WWE. For us to share a moment like that, it was pretty cool. Triple H is the reason I’m here. He’s the one who took a chance on me because a lot has been said about how I look and how I don’t have the typical WWE superstar look, even though I feel like over the past three or four years that whole stereotype has been destroyed. Still, it was something that people would always point to as to why they thought I wouldn’t make it in the WWE even if I got hired. Well, not only did I get hired, but last Monday, I won the Universal title and Triple H literally handed it to me. People can say what they want about that, but to me, it was a pretty special moment.”

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