Kevin Owens Talks Sami Zayn Getting The Credit He Deserves
Kevin Owens is an on-screen adversary of Sami Zayn, but he’s also praising his best friend for getting the credit he deserves.
The careers of Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn will forever be linked because they both came up in pro wrestling together as two guys from the province of Quebec, Canada. They were stars on the indies that were friends and adversaries in Ring of Honor with Owens using his real name Kevin Steen while Zayn was known as El Generico wrestling under a mask.
Both men would end up in WWE with Zayn arriving first followed by Owens. On KO’s first night in NXT, Zayn won the NXT Title for the first time and while it appeared as though Owens was happy for his best friend, he ended up turning him that same night. Owens also was the one that ended Zayn’s NXT Title run.
Since Owens and Zayn have been on WWE’s main roster for the past seven years, they have been on-screen rivals and allies again. Even when they are put on opposite brands like Owens being a Raw superstar and Zayn being a Smackdown guy, they find a way to be back together just like at Survivor Series.
In the Men’s WarGames match at Survivor Series, Zayn and Owens played key roles in the match. The story going in was about whether Zayn would remain loyal to The Bloodline or would want to help his best friend Owens. After Owens hit Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns with a Stunner, Owens went for a cover, but Zayn stopped the referee’s count. Owens shouted at Zayn about it, which led to Zayn hitting a low blow uppercut and Helluva Kick. Jey Uso finished off Owens with an Uso Splash for the pinfall win.
This past Monday on the November 28th edition of Raw, Owens talked about his history with Zayn and said he was done dealing with Zayn.
During an appearance on WWE’s After The Bell podcast, Kevin Owens talked about Zayn’s success while adding that he’s seen how talented Zayn was over the last 20 years.
“He’s thriving. I meant that on Monday too. People are seeing the Sami Zayn that I’ve known was there for 20 years. I don’t know why it took people so long to take notice and get the credit he deserves because he’s been incredible in WWE the whole time, but the last few months have obviously opened people’s eyes and it’s great, but I don’t think it’s optimal for our careers to be parallel anymore.”
Kevin Owens recalled a time when he was told that WWE’s former Chairman Vince McMahon told Owens and Zayn that they weren’t going to have them wrestle anymore, but of course, that didn’t happen and they would have many more matches together.
“I kind of think we both tried to separate ourselves for a long time and it just never worked out, somehow we’d always find a way back to each other. This is 2016, we had a match at Battleground, and everyone; the commentators were talking about it, everyone backstage was talking about it, Vince McMahon was saying, ‘this is your last one. We’re going to do this one and this is it.’ How many matches have we had since then?”
One of the matches that happened since then was at WrestleMania 37 in 2021 when Kevin Owens beat Sami Zayn at the biggest show of the year.