PWP Nation’s Zack Heydorn explains why he believes WWE Night of Champions will finally be Kevin Owens’ shining moment on the main roster.
On Sunday at WWE Night Of Champions, Kevin Owens challenges Ryback for the Intercontinental Championship. All signs point to Owens winning this match and becoming the IC Champion for the first time ever. This title reign couldn’t come soon enough and it will do wonders for Owens’s career, the IC division, and fans around the world.
From the moment that Kevin Owens debuted in the WWE he has been somewhat of an anomaly. Think about it. The guy gets on TV and immediately starts up a feud with the biggest star in the company in John Cena. He wins his first match in a match of the year candidate, has merchandise flying off shelf, and is regularly in main event segments on the company’s biggest show, Monday Night Raw.
This is not a normal path of a debuting WWE Superstar.
From there though, Owens proceeded to lose his next two matches to John Cena, ultimately loses the feud, and immediately gets relegated to the mid-card in a meaningless mini program with Cesaro at Summerslam. For as quickly as he was catapulted up the card, he fell back down even quicker. Was he kicked back down? Possibly. We’ve debated that at length on my PWP Radio show, The Bottom Line.
At this point though, that no longer matters. What matters is that he is going to be the Intercontinental Champion now. He is going to be the face of a division and will get much more over because of it. Other wrestlers will get more over because of it as well. Ryback already has. It’s no secret that Ryback has plenty of work to do on the microphone and in the ring before he can keep ascending up the WWE ladder. On Raw this past week though, Ryback cut a halfway decent promo in the ring.
As shocking as that was, the reason it was decent was because he was going up against a promo king in Kevin Owens. Owens’s presence in that segment made Ryback look like a million bucks. He made the IC title look like a million bucks. And because of all that, made himself look like a million bucks as well.
Kevin Owens needs this in his career right now. The Owens character of being an arrogant but dominant prize-fighting heel is a perfect one for him, but without a proper storyline to dominate, it can fizzle away quickly. This IC title story will keep him top of mind amongst fans and truly give him something to sink his teeth into. He’ll be winning matches and working with a variety of different wrestlers that will all benefit from being in the ring with him.
The Intercontinental Championship division needs this right now. After Daniel Bryan had to vacate the title because of injury it has become less meaningful than the United States Championship. Part of that has to do with the incredible run of matches that John Cena had with US Title, but the other part of it was that wrestlers who held the IC title just weren’t as good as they should’ve been to be in that spot. Remember, names like The Rock, HHH, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Edge, Randy Orton, and Shawn Michaels all held the Intercontinental Championship.
This year it’s been the likes of Bad News Barrett and now Ryback. Nothing against those guys, but this championship and this division needs a bigger star to elevate them. Kevin Owens is that star. He is a guy who is capable of having great matches with anyone on the roster. Because of that, he will be able to have feuds and tell stories with anyone. Because Owens is so good, he will make all IC title segments relevant again. It won’t be filler material, but it will be featured content on every show. There is no doubt in my mind that Kevin Owens will have a good long run with the IC title.
By then, Owens will have elevated that belt to new heights, he will have elevated the division to new heights, and he will have developed himself into an even bigger and more prominent main event player. That will set up the mid card for years to come. Once Owens has his run, the superstar picked to finally beat him will be a made man in the company, with the fans, and will keep the division burning on all cylinders in the years ahead once Kevin Owens takes his place high atop the WWE main event scene.
You as WWE fans and pure wrestling fans alike need this title reign too. Since Wrestlemania, the United States Championship Open Challenge by John Cena elevated that title to heights not seen at any point throughout its tenure in the WWE. It brought about new match-ups with brand new competitors and superstars. These were matches that the entire wrestling community looked forward to each and every week. These matches especially appealed to the smarter fan because it involved longer and faster paced matches. True wrestling matches. It was very refreshing to see because we hadn’t seen anything like that in a long time. A Kevin Owens IC title reign is going to produce the same type of hype.
His reign won’t include things like an Open Challenge due to the fact that Owens is a heel, but the matches he has as champion will undoubtedly steal the show on any card and be true wrestling matches. Kevin Owens brings validity back to the Intercontinental Championship and as fans, we’ve wanted that for an extremely long time. It’s time to embrace it.
Let’s call a spade a spade. The WWE got cold feet with their initial push of Kevin Owens. He certainly turned some heads upon his entry onto the WWE main roster, but somewhere along the line officials decided it was not the time to run with him. We can, and have, debated the pros and cons of that decision but at this point in time it’s all irrelevant. Kevin Owens is where he is. In the long run, this positioning will be the best thing that ever happened to him as a performer.
Now, he has the opportunity to build himself up organically with the audience and could be bigger and better than ever. That’s what we want right? Kevin Owens on top? If that’s the case, sit back and enjoy this upcoming title reign. Enjoy Night Of Champions as it’s the real Kevin Owens coming out party. It’s going to be new, it’s going to be fresh, and it’s going to make Kevin Owens one of the biggest stars in the WWE.
I hate to burst this bubble, and I do believe that Owens will get that IC title at some point, it’s not happening at Night of Champions. Let’s face it, the forces in the back want Ryback to pick up a credible win and this is coming at the expense of Kevin Owens. I know as a fan of him I want to see him with the title, but I don’t have that much faith right now. Maybe a month or two, and we might see that happen.
Ha! Before the match, I saw it potentially going both ways. That said, how much better is it that he won the belt? Just adds legitimacy to it right away IMO. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does tonight on Raw.