The Mountie – also known as Jacques Rogeau Jr. – was recently interviewed by Dr. Chris Featherstone for SK Wrestling’s UnSKripted (via Sportskeeda), where he spoke about his former student, Kevin Owens. The two have had a pretty contentious history, with Owens starting out his career at The Mountie’s wrestling school.
When asked about Owens, The Mountie acknowledged that Owens was a phenomenon at his school, and that he reminded him of himself during his time watching him. “Kevin Owens was a phenomenon when he came to my wrestling school. He was five years at my wrestling school, but he had this ability of learning fast,” he said. “So listen, I haven’t followed Kevin’s career that much after he left because we didn’t leave on quite great terms when he left my territory. So, I didn’t follow up on him, but I noticed that success was following him, and amazing to see myself in the ring at so many times because of the way he kicks, the promos. Because when I think, the guys in my school, I used to teach them from scratch. It was not only in the ring but the mic, the entrance, the arenas. He was really a great talent and a natural talent.”
Later in the conversation, the topic of Owens and Rogeau’s falling out came up, where The Mountie acknowledged that things broke down because he wouldn’t allow Owens to work for other companies due to risk of injury. “We had a falling out, Kevin and I. One reason was because he didn’t respect the fact that my boys weren’t allowed to go and wrestle for other companies,” he said. “And that was a rule that was very hard for the boys to understand because everybody wanted to go and learn and get a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But the thing was, I was doing tremendously well with my company, and I was selling out all my arenas with 3-4 thousand people, but with no TVs. And I was going from company to company and selling the market, that was no sex, no drugs, no violence, no girls in my shows. It was really oriented towards kids. But the thing was, all my shows were sold out. Not because it was easily done, I had to go work hard, but the thing was, he was such a great talent and the talent that I produced that I taught in the wrestling business and then came did my shows is I went to every company and told them, I said, ‘Hey, wait till you see the match between the Spiderman and The Mummy. And wait till you see this match, Kevin Steen – Kevin Steen was his name at the time, Kevin Steen against Gorgeous Mike. So I was selling all this talent to the companies where I was going. Many times at the beginning, the guys would go on a spot show on a Friday night and hurt an ankle or something. So they won’t be able to come to my 5000 people show, because they were in front of 25 people the night before and they hurt themselves.”
The Mountie ended things by saying that Owens was a great student, and that despite the falling out, he understands why Owens was upset, as he knows all they wanted to do was wrestle. “But he was a good student, he was great. So, after we had our falling out, and the couple of boys who were against my policies, which I respected. I said, ‘Listen, if you want to go wrestle for other federations, do it, but I’m not going to be using you.’ And that was my choice. It was my company, my business, and I did 20 years of great success with my business like that. But I understand that my boys, I do. I understand the boys being upset that they can’t wrestle for another federation.”
