Highlights of Kevin Owens On Stone Cold Podcast

Kevin Owens was recently a guest on “The Stone Cold Podcast” and revealed a few things about joining the WWE.

On what WWE officials told him when he first signed:
“When I got to NXT, I had no idea what or who I would be really. I got signed, but I was never given an indication of what the plans were, if there were plans. As a matter of fact, when I got signed, Canyon Ceman, who is Triple H’s kind of righthand man with recruiting talent, called me and said, ‘well, we’re going to hire you, but I was told to let you know not to get your hopes up as far as RAW and SmackDown goes because, as you’re aware, you’re maybe not somebody who Vince McMahon would gravitate towards. But you’re going to get your chance in NXT like everyone else.’ And my exact words back to him were, ‘well, I look forward to the challenge’ and he said, ‘well, I thought that’s what you’d say.’”

On what Dusty Rhodes thought of the ‘Kevin Owens’ ring name:
“[Rhodes] goes, ‘Kevin Owens, huh?’ I’m like, ‘yep. Do you like it?’ He goes, ‘nope!’ And as he keeps walking back to the office, I’m kind of laughing. He goes, ‘who thought of it?’ and I go, ‘Hunter,’ and he goes, ‘I love it!’ And that’s Dusty! He really popped me! ‘Nope!’, ‘I love it!’ That’s pretty good.”

On Enzo Amore telling him to just be himself:
“I had singlets made because I figured, ‘well, WWE, you’ve got to look nice and clean.’ And that’s not me. That was never me.” Owens continued, “Enzo Amore, at that point, I didn’t know my name; I didn’t know my character; I didn’t know [anything]. Enzo saw me in my singlet and he was like, ‘well, what is that? That’s not you. Till you’re told otherwise, just be you.’ I was like, ‘oh, alright. I got here because of who I was and they want me to be me. And I’ve always stayed true to that. Of course, there [are] little aspects of who I am, that I’ve played up at different times, like the last few months I’ve been more about being entertaining and this and that, but I feel like I’ve shown all kinds of shades of my character from the time I showed up with [John] Cena till now.” Owens added, “that’s what I was in Ring Of Honor. That’s what I was in PWG. That’s what I was on the indies for years. And when I got here, I just didn’t know if that’s what they wanted. Once I got the feel that is what they wanted, I went in headfirst and never looked back.”

On Daniel Bryan being able to change the way WWE looks at different body types:
“Now it’s a very different environment and a very different territory, if I may borrow the expression. We really do have guys of all sizes, all shapes, and there [are] the cruiserweights. Everything [has] really changed in the last two years, but at that time, it still wasn’t this way. There’d already been guys that, much like myself, were successful even though they weren’t the kind of guys you’d expect Vince to be onboard with, like Daniel Bryan. He probably deserves a lot of credit for people like myself and Sami Zayn and Samoa Joe being here because he really broke down the barriers, almost like the fake barriers that people were putting up. Yeah, the perception. He really changed the perception.”

You can listen to the entire podcast here:
The Stone Cold Podcast Gimme A Hell Yeah