4 years of Kevin Owens in WWE: 3 positives and 3 negatives

After defeating Rusev at WrestleMania 31, John Cena attempted to restore prestige to the WWE United States Championship by issuing weekly Open Challenges on Monday Night Raw.

Between March 2015 and May 2015, he retained his title against Dean Ambrose, Stardust, Bad News Barrett, Kane, Rusev, Heath Slater, Sami Zayn and Neville, and then he came face-to-face with someone who had never been seen on WWE’s main-roster programming: Kevin Owens.

On May 18, 2015, Owens – the NXT champion at the time – made an instant impression by taking out Cena with a Pop-Up Powerbomb before stomping on the United States Championship.

Looking back at his debut before he challenges Kofi Kingston for the WWE Championship at the 2019 Money In The Bank pay-per-view, Owens tweeted:

"4 years ago today, I showed up on Raw for the very first time.

"I’ve accomplished a lot since then but tomorrow night at #MITB, I add one more accolade to the list by becoming @WWE Champion."

In this article, let’s take a look at the three biggest positives and three biggest negatives of Owens’ main-roster WWE career so far.

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#6 Positive: Debut win over John Cena

Most Superstars have to spend years in the WWE system to make their way to the top of the card before they even get an opportunity to face John Cena, never mind defeat him.

In Kevin Owens’ case, he carried on the momentum he gained during his eye-opening Raw debut by picking up a clean pinfall victory over Cena when the two champions met in a non-title match at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view in May 2015.

Although Owens, then known as “The Prizefighter”, had quickly established himself as one of the top names in NXT during his rivalry with Sami Zayn, this win over Cena was the moment that instantly catapulted him to main-roster stardom.

For the rest of the summer of 2015, Owens featured heavily on NXT, Raw and SmackDown, as well as WWE pay-per-views, as he cemented his status as one of the company’s top bad guys and stars of the future.

#5 Positive: Universal Championship reign

After winning the Intercontinental Championship in September 2015 and February 2016, Kevin Owens went one better in August 2016 when he won a Fatal 4-Way match on Raw against Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns and Big Cass to become the new Universal champion.

Owens went on to headline three of the next four Raw-exclusive pay-per-views, retaining his title against Rollins and Reigns along the way, while he also formed an entertaining friendship with Chris Jericho.

The segments between Team Kevin & Chris (aka Team Chris & Kevin) were must-see television for WWE fans, especially when their friendship began to derail in early 2017, leading to the widely praised ‘Festival of Friendship’ segment on Raw.

The way in which Owens lost the Universal Championship – a 22-second match against Goldberg at Fastlane – did not go down well with fans, but his overall reign of 188 days will always be remembered fondly.

#4 Negative: Goldberg defeat

The biggest negative from Kevin Owens’ Universal Championship reign came when he lost his title against Goldberg in the main event of the Fastlane pay-per-view in March 2017.

In the weeks leading up to the event, it had been widely reported – and later confirmed by Chris Jericho – that WWE planned for Y2J to defeat Owens for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 33.

However, the company’s plans changed and the two men ended up meeting for Jericho’s United States Championship at ‘Mania, while Goldberg won the Universal Championship in a 22-second match at Fastlane before losing it to Brock Lesnar four weeks later.

The manner of Owens’ title loss left a lot to be desired – Goldberg simply hit a spear and a Jackhammer after a distraction from Jericho to get the win – and it was no surprise that WWE fans started to turn against the WCW legend after this moment.

#3 Negative: WrestleMania 33

Kevin Owens defeated Chris Jericho in the second match of the night at WrestleMania 33 to win the United States Championship.

The general consensus amongst fans after the show was that Owens vs. Jericho was a decent match but the WrestleMania pay-off to their eight-month storyline felt a little underwhelming, especially considering that they had one of the hottest angles going into ‘Mania following the ‘Festival of Friendship’.

The match alone is not worthy of being talked about as one of the biggest negatives of Owens’ WWE career – it was not that bad – but its inclusion in this list is definitely worthy when you hear what Vince McMahon thought about it.

In footage captured on Owens’ ‘WWE 365’ documentary on the WWE Network, KO asked his boss if everything was good after their match, to which McMahon bluntly replied, “No... no...”

Jericho later told Inside The Ropes:

"I thought the match was good. I was very surprised when I saw KO after and he's like, ‘Vince said it was one of the worst matches in WrestleMania history.’"

#2 Positive: Attacking Vince McMahon

It appears as though Vince McMahon decided to take the tough-love approach with Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 33, as the WWE chairman chose to work with the three-time United States champion during a segment later that year on SmackDown Live in September 2017.

Owens had been attacked one week earlier by Shane McMahon, prompting him to threaten to sue WWE. Vince then got involved and said he would fire KO if he ever filed a lawsuit against the company.

This led to Owens viciously assaulting his boss – first with a headbutt, then a kick to the face, then a frog splash – in what remains the greatest SmackDown Live moment since the blue brand was revamped in 2016.

Four weeks later, the former Universal champion defeated Shane in a Hell In A Cell match in the main event of the Hell In A Cell pay-per-view, courtesy of assistance at ringside from old enemy Sami Zayn.

#1 Negative: WrestleMania 35

WrestleMania 35 was originally supposed to feature a WWE Championship match between champion Daniel Bryan and challenger Kevin Owens.

However, at exactly the same time that WWE began airing vignettes for the return of Owens as a babyface, Kofi Kingston took the place of the injured Ali in the Elimination Chamber match in February 2019 and he built up a ton of momentum in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania 35.

Owens, meanwhile, was fast-tracked into a WWE Championship Triple Threat match at Fastlane, where he and Ali lost against Bryan, and Kingston overcame multiple obstacles before winning the WWE Championship at ‘Mania.

As for KO, he ended up not competing at WWE’s biggest show of the year, despite the fact that he was originally supposed to challenge for the company’s most prestigious title.

Discussing the situation with Sky Sports, Owens said:

"I actually went home because I couldn't be in that stadium. I flew home to watch it [WrestleMania 35] with my kids and my wife. I'm not sure how many people in this company are aware of that but I came back the next day. It was nice to be with my family, that made it a lot easier, but if you're in this company and you're not on WrestleMania and you don't take it hard, you should probably go do something else with your life. I don't think anybody can fault me for that."