Kevin Owens is one of the best talkers in professional wrestling, thanks, in part, to advice from one of the best to ever do it.
WWE star Kevin Owens recently appeared on Out of Character with Ryan Satin and told the story of he and Sami Zayn meeting ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin back in 2005 at an airport in Texas. Owens explained how they ran into each other before sharing how something Austin told him defined his career.
“That’s something that defined my career, it really did. It’s may sound like an exaggeration to say that my career may not have went the way that it did if it weren’t for that meeting, but it’s true. For those that haven’t heard the story, I met him [Stone Cold] in 2005 in an airport in Texas. Sami Zayn and I were connecting on our way to a PWG show, the story is actually really funny, so, we were connecting and it was our second connection because we got the cheapest flights possible and we had driven from Montreal to Albany, New York which was about a three-hour drive in the middle of the night and then I forgot where we flew to, maybe Chicago and then a connection into Texas and then to LA, we were exhausted and we’re on our connection and we’re on our way to the gate and I take a drink of water and out of the corner of my eye I see Stone Cold.
“I think he was trying to be on his own but maybe not, so I’m like, man, this is my one chance to talk to him, this is my idol, I have to talk to him. So, I go back over to Sami and I say ‘look, we’re gonna go talk to Stone Cold’ and he’s like ‘what?!’ and I said ‘just get your ass over here!’ and I don’t know how but I said we’re gonna go talk to Stone Cold and he heard ‘hey, we’re gonna go fight these guys’ and as we’re walking towards Austin, he said ‘who are we fighting?’ and I’m like ‘what?’ and then I said ‘we’re not gonna fight, we’re going to talk to Stone Cold Steve Austin’ and he’s like ‘that’s not Stone…oh, sh*t, it is!’”
Owens says they made some small talk with Austin, then he asked for some advice before they parted ways. Owens then shared what Austin said to him, adding that he isn’t sure how his career would have panned out if it wasn’t for that chance meeting.
“So, we introduced ourselves and said we’re independent wrestlers on our way to California for a show and he was super nice, very friendly and we shot the sh*t a little bit about how the business works and how the independent scene was because obviously, he wasn’t on the independent scene for a very long time then they called the first-class passengers and obviously mister fancy pants was in first-class so he had to go and I couldn’t let him go without asking ‘if you have one piece of advice what is it?’ and he goes ‘just keep running your mouth, just never stop running your mouth’ and then he left and got on the plane and we walked passed him when we were boarding and we said bye or whatever.
“But I put that piece of advice right to work and that was the weekend I won the PWG Title for the first time against AJ Styles and I was talking sh*t the whole match and that became a staple of my entire independent career and now into WWE. I think it’s actually one of the things people enjoy the most about my work and it really helped take me to another level that I had to take at that time. So, who knows what would’ve happened if he’d given me that advice.”
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