Kevin Owens Comments on WWE Universal Title Feud with Roman Reigns, Wanting to Jump off Pirate Ship at WrestleMania, More

Here are some interview highlights from WWE Smackdown superstar Kevin Owens talking to Fox Sports about a lot of things going on in his career and life. The full video of the interview is at the bottom of this post.

Owens talked about his WWE Universal Championship feud with Roman Reigns that helped to remind people of how good of a performer he is when he’s at that main event level again.

“The nature of our industry and the way things work and the amount of very talented people we have on the roster, just makes for an environment where you constantly have to prove your worth day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, right? It’s almost like people in the industry or the company take things for granted. Like, I think after all the years I’ve put in – and I’m one of many, I’m not saying this just about myself – but, there are guys where when the shows go on the people in charge just know, ‘Oh, they’re going to have a good match.’ They take it for granted because they know it’s going to be a good match or they’re going to be able to tell this story great, or they’re going to be able to deliver this promo great. But, it becomes almost like it’s expected of us because it’s what we do. So, then it’s like, ‘Of course they had a good match.’ It’s like, not special, almost. You see what I mean? So, once in a while, you have to have these special performances that are a bit above what you usually deliver even if what you usually deliver is good, – and like I said, we have a ton of men and women who do it on a weekly basis – but, once in a while, you just need this one performance to make people take notice again.”

“Like, ‘Oh, you know, he is really good,’ or, ‘Oh, we could do something with this.’ So, obviously, this story with Roman was a big opportunity for me to do that again. Yeah, I think we accomplished it. Even Roman, I think. People are already aware, since he came back, that he’s on another level now. And I think our story helped prove that even more, you know? I think it did a lot of good for both of us. Especially me, though.”

Owens spoke about how it was originally going to be one match between Roman Reigns at Owens at TLC in December. However, it turned a Steel Cage match on Christmas Smackdown and then at Royal Rumble two weeks ago.

“When we did the TLC match, we didn’t set out knowing that we’d be doing a match at the Royal Rumble. We didn’t even know about the cage match that was going to take match until the day of TLC, or the day before, and the cage match was, obviously, just a few days later. So, at TLC we went all out. Because in our minds, we weren’t like, ‘Oh, we know where this is going. We gotta save ourselves.’ Like, no, man. We just threw it all out there. Then same for the cage match. Then the Rumble situation presented itself and it’s not like we can go backward and just have a normal match after what we had done at TLC already. So, yeah. It is a challenge, but it is enjoyable as well.”

Owens has spoken in the past about how he wanted to jump off the pirate ship at Tampa Bay’s Raymond James Stadium at WrestleMania last year. WrestleMania’s location changed last year because it was at the Performance Center. Owens was asked if he still wants to do the pirate ship jump this year.

“No, I want to do it. I can’t promise people that I’m going to do it because, you know, circumstances and whatever. But, I can promise everybody that I’m gonna try as much as possible to do it. I’ll do my best. I’ll annoy anybody I can. I will get into anyone’s ear I possibly can. I will literally do everything in my power to get to the point where I can jump off that ship.”

“But, even climbing up the ship, like, it’s already ready in my head. How I’m going to get up there, everything. I studied it. I did my research before I made that claim last year. So, I’m ready for it this year.”

Owens uses the Stunner as his finishing moves these days and was asked what his best Stunner was.

“It was on Shane McMahon on Smackdown the night that I started my crusade against him. You know, where I came out at the top of the show and cut that promo about how nobody’s asked for Shane McMahon on TV and stuff like that. Later that night I snuck back into the building and the show ended on me hitting a stunner on Shane and the crowd went crazy.”

“Then I hopped the rail, went right into the crowd and it led right into Roman’s victory – which is ironic. But, anyway. Roman, was in a match when it happened. All the ingredients were there for that moment to be pretty special. So, I think that’s the one I’d pick out of all of them.”

You can read a full transcript here on Fox’s website. The full video interview that runs for nearly 22 minutes is below.