Heartwarming / Kevin Owens

• Can also be Harsher in Hindsight depending on your point of view, but his last ever match in PWG, where after it ended, he spoke about how he was leaving to go help El Generico with the orphans.
  • He also wrote "OLE" on his wrist tape.
• After their final PWG match together (as Generico was heading to WWE), Kevin fakes everyone out by going to leave without even shaking the departing Generico's hand. He comes back to hug his longtime friend/rival goodbye as the crowd goes nuts.
  Steen: Wherever you end up, wherever you’re going, whatever happens to you, please know: I would be nothing without you.
• At a house show on March 12th, Kevin Owens faced off against AJ Styles in an Iron Man match for the Intercontinental Championship. After winning the match and retaining his title, Owens uncharacteristically had a heartfelt speech about the long journey he and AJ Styles went through to get to where they were today. Even though shortly after said speech, in true KO fashion, he starts talking about how awesome he is prompting AJ to interrupt his rant with a flying forearm, for him to break Kayfabe for that one moment before going back to his heel self was definitely heartwarming.
  Owens: When someone decides they want to be a professional wrestler when they're young, 99% of the time their dream is for WWE. And it took me 15 years to get here. It took you even longer. And this is not like me... because this comes from the heart: as someone who has always dreamed of being in this ring, and as someone who has wrestled you in front of crowds of, what, 50 people? To get to do it here tonight in front of all these people in this ring was truly special to me. -crowd cheers- It took me way too long to get here. It took you way to long to get here. But it's not because we're not talented, because I will say at any time, because you and I are two of the absolute best in the entire world. And I take great pride in being the Intercontinental Champion, but I take even more pride in defending it against people like you. So we're going to do this again, and I for one, can't wait. -shakes hands with AJ-
• Owens makes his debut for Xavier Woods' gaming channel, UpUpDownDown... and not only does he out himself as a Sega Genesis kid, he brings along his son Owen to play Sonic Adventure.
• He named his WWE in-ring persona after his son. And he named his son after Owen Hart.
  • Anything having to do with his family. He's clearly made them his number one priority and loves being able to provide a good life for them (especially after the hard times on the indy circuit).
• In real life Owens is a close friend of Seth Rollins, dating back to their Ring of Honor days - so much so that when Rollins' faction The Shield made their in-ring debut at TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs 2012 Owens bought a ticket to the show and attended as a fan to cheer his friend on.
  • Not only did he attend, TLC 2012 was only a few hours removed from ROH's Final Battle show, where Kevin and Generico went through a vicious ladder match. Kevin competed in, and won the match while fighting what he describes at the virus from hell. He started vomiting right before his entrance, held it together through the match, continued being sick afterward on the ride to the Barclay's Center, threw up in the bathroom during other matches, but managed to get to his seat and sit through the Shield match. That's friendship.
• The complete and utter shock on his face when, during a fatal-four-way match for the Universal Championship, Triple H interfered and pedigreed both Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, allowing Owens to pin Rollins for his first championship. Owens breaks down in tears as he takes the belt, living out his childhood dream.
  • When he gets backstage, Sami Zayn is there to greet him. All the miles they've traveled as Steen and Generico, all the sacrifices they've made, all Owens can say is "this is ours".
  • One of the first people he called after winning the title? Finn Bálor, the injured former champion and one of Owens' best friends.
• At Roadblock: End of the Line, there were a few segments regarding Kevin Owens' quest to reconcile with his best friend Chris Jericho, Kevin giving genuine and downright desperate apologies and gestures of friendship. Jericho would later go out to forgive his best friend to a pop from the crowd, despite the two being heels.
• During a House Show vs Sami Zayn (El Generico). After the match, Zayn stopped Owens from leaving and started cutting a promo on his history with Owens that dates back to their Indie Wrestling days. Zayn makes it a point that, while Owens is supposed to be hated, everyone in the crowd that day loves Owens and the work he's put in to get where he is and began to cheer for him. The amount of admiration he received that moment was so much to Owens that he began to cry, showing how much it really meant to him.
  • This also happened during a house show in Montreal (both Owens' and Zayn's hometown), where they both ran out to save Pat Patterson from a beatdown from the Singh Brothers and Jinder Mahal. For a very few minutes, Steenerico rode again, with Zayn putting Owens over on the mic.
• Watching Owens and Zayn finally be on-screen allies and tag-team partners for the first time since 2009 is pretty sweet. Their Real Life bond really shines through, with Owens kissing Zayn on the cheek pretty constantly and beaming like a proud parent whenever Zayn cuts a promo (after years of being masked and fairly quiet as Generico).
• Neither Owens nor Zayn were booked for Wrestlemania 35 (Zayn being saved for the Raw after Mania, Owens due to quietly giving up his feud with Daniel Bryan in favor of Kofi Kingston getting the WM shot). They faced off in a Smackdown dark match two nights later:
  Owens: You know, I missed Wrestlemania this year. (crowd boos). Yeah, I know. It stings. And you, Sami, you came back last night, so you were clearly ready the night of Wrestlemania, and you missed it too. We both missed out. What kind of makes it okay is that tonight is the first time we have been in the same ring in the last nine months.
• Kevin takes the opportunity to hijack Ride Along and brings (fellow PWG vet) Apollo Crews and Mustafa Ali to the American Legion Hall in Reseda, California, the longtime venue for Pro Wrestling Guerilla. The hall is being condemned, due to be destroyed in two days, and Kevin gets the chance to reminisce about some of his memorable moments in the building (including the formation of Mount Rushmore and his Steen Wolf ladder match with Generico).
• Just after Sami Zayn won his first-ever championship in WWE, Kevin tweeted this message:
  Owens: You can complain all you want about how he won it or his attitude but Sami being Intercontinental Champion is long overdue... I'm very proud of you @SamiZayn.
• If you're a friend of Kevin's and you're a wrestler, he'll probably wear your t-shirt in support. Notable examples include Sami Zayn's shirt during Kevin's NXT signing announcement, frequent appearances of both Finn Bálor's Balor Club and PE&K shirts, Rey Mysterio's shirt for his recent return, and an Ever-Rise shirt on the go-home Smackdown before the Royal Rumble.
• Those two kids from Quebec did it: Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn wrestled each other at WrestleMania. Despite the story being thrown-together and the presence of certain Internet celebrities, Kevin took the opportunity during the night one rain delay to reframe the narrative - Kevin and Sami have been wrestling each other and bucking the odds for 18 years, and when you take away all the trappings, it's just the story of two friends who have something incredibly special happen when they wrestle each other.
  • His post-match promo from night two is basically a love letter to their rivalry and friendship:
    Kevin: In December of 2002, I met Sami Zayn for the first time, and from that point on, we started wrestling each other all over the world. We did this hundreds, hundreds of times, we really have. And what I said on Wrestlemania night one during that weather delay thing was 100% true, and I still stand by what I said. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find two individuals in this industry that were looked-down-upon and talked down to more than us. And I mean, there's been a lot of "us", but man, how many times did we hear that "you two will never make it to the show"? Let me tell you something. (points to Wrestlemania logo) I'm pretty sure THIS is the show we were told we'd never make it to! And we just made it there together. Sure, we were rivals tonight, we were opponents, but the Sami Zayn I've learned to love over the past two decades, and the Sami Zayn the WWE Universe has cared for for so long? The unmatchable athlete, one of the greatest performers in the world within those ropes? That's not the Sami Zayn I faced tonight. But let me tell you from experience, because I just walked out of that ring with him, he's still incredible. And while it felt great, like it always does, stunning him - hopefully back to reality - was one of the most amazing moments of my career. I insist on saying this... Sami? Thank you.
• Fourteen years after the last time they held tag gold together, Kevin and Sami have become part of the first tag team championship match to main-event a Wrestlemania at Wrestlemania 39, toppling The Usos 500+ day reign. When the referee counts to three, Kevin and Sami sit across from each other in the ring, looking as if they can't even believe it's happened, and break into tears when the referee presents them with the double belts.
  • Ever since 2017, Kevin Owens has been one title away from his Grand Slam Champion status - the tag team titles. Whenever it was brought up, Kevin only ever mentioned one person he wanted to be tag champions with: Sami Zayn. At Wrestlemania 39, Kevin closed out the show as a Grand Slam Champion, holding the tag titles with Sami.
  • Immediately after Sami scores the pin on Jey, Kevin lowers his head quietly into his hands, goes to his knees on the ropes, and looks at the camera weeping. Sometimes, a victory is so important, and a closure so sweet, that even a stone-cold murder machine like Kevin Owens can do nothing but cry.
• During the press conference for Night of Champions 2023 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (a place that his best friend Sami Zayn was barred from going for five years and that Kevin himself refused to go in solidarity), Kevin wasn't about to let Roman Reigns steal any of Sami's thunder.
  Roman: Hey, shut his music off. You're early, I'm supposed to have ten minutes to talk to my people.
  Kevin: Oh, you want more time? Here's the thing, Roman, you're out of time. It's time to bring out the guy they have been waiting for for five years! [Sami's music hits]
• His match with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at Wrestlemania 38, both on the giving and receiving end. On the one hand, he made his costar look like a million bucks and gave the crowd (in Austin's native Texas, no less) everything they wanted in one last match from the Rattlesnake. On the other, he got to have a serious brawl with a wrestler he grew up idolising, and Austin has had nothing but praise for his opponent's performance in the ring.
• At WrestleMania 40, Kevin appears before Sami as the latter is about to make his entrance to face Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship… to give Sami encouragement, showing that he strongly believes his friend can and will win against all odds as they did together last year. On Night 2, a newly-crowned IC Champion Sami appears before Kevin to give *him* words of encouragement before the latter heads to the ring for his US Title triple threat match. Kevin didn't win the title that night, but it was the thought that counts.