Current WWE United States Champion Kevin Owens recently spoke with The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com to promote Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown from the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.
As WrestleMania 34 will take place in that city next year, the reigning champ discussed which WWE superstars he’d most want to face in the ring for next year’s event, from rosters both past and present.
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Owens choice of dream opponents include two peers he shares history with (Sami Zayn, Finn Balor) and one retired WWE legend he greatly admires– Shawn Michaels, The Heartbreak Kid– if the latter could be a possibility.
“If you say past, it’s Shawn Michaels hands down. If you say present, Sami Zayn and I have had such a rich history, I feel like a one-on-one match at WrestleMania would be so perfect. But there’s also Finn Balor. He’s my best friend. He’s probably the one guy if I could sit across from in the ring at WrestleMania, that would make my career.”
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Owens and Zayn have been friends and rivals ever since the pair got into the wrestling business. The two Canadian up-and-comers wrestled each other in a number of local and smaller wrestling companies before both signing with NXT, and coming up to the main roster together.
But after Owens rivalry with Zayn came to an end in NXT, his next major feud for the remainder of his time in the developmental brand was against Finn Balor. And though it was a while longer before Balor made the leap to the WWE, Owens still sees parallels in their journeys: “Finn and I got to WWE at the same time, and we dived into an unknown territory. We gravitated toward each other very quickly. He’s like a brother to me now.”
Owens and Zayn will both be contestants in the ladder match at Money in the Bank next weekend. But it remains to be seen whether the two will be pitted against each other in a major feud following that event, or just the occasional match as we’ve grown used to.
And while Shawn Michaels has made several appearances in the ring this past year, they’ve been to promote movie tie-ins. Don’t expect to see him come out of retirement any time soon.
But no matter what the WWE has in store for Owens, he doesn’t plan on resigning his title as “The New Face of America” anytime soon. As he explained in the interview:
“I’d love to be involved in the WWE title match at WrestleMania 34 or at the very least be defending my United States championship. I have no intention of letting that go anytime soon.”
[H/T Sportskeeda, Wrestling Inc]
