By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Kevin Owens
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
On wrestling Steve Austin at WrestleMania 38: “So I would have to admit tying back to how he came back, when I asked him to use the Stone Cold Stunner yes, I wanted a new finishing move and yes, I think it’s the greatest finish of all time. But there was a big part of me who thought in the unlikely event, which won’t happen, but if he ever were to come back for a match, it’s going to be against the guy who was doing his finishing move, and that’s exactly what happened. So I don’t think that played a part in it. I think Vince wanted him to be on the WrestleMania in Dallas and he wasn’t sure in what capacity. I’m not sure how. I think they talked. He said no at first from what I understand.
“Then they went back to him and he’s like, Okay, who would it be with? And I think that’s when they said me, which I think he was good with. Then somehow, was it going to be a talking segment? Was it going to be a match? Was it going to be a Stunner? Literally up until the day of the show we had no idea. Me and Steve had talked, I would talk to Steve, ask him, ‘What are we going to do?’ And he goes, ‘I don’t know, depends on Vince.’ So I talked to Vince, and Vince goes, ‘Depends on Steve.’ And I’m like can’t you guys talk to each other for f— sake? But yeah, up until that day we really didn’t know for sure what it was going to be, turned out to be what it was and it was pretty great. I’m very lucky to have been a part of it. To this day the craziest thing that I’ll ever have done in my career, and I don’t think anything will top it.”
On whether Austin stiffed him in the match: “Yeah. Actually the night of the match, when I go back to my hotel my earlobe was swollen like this big from his punches. I went [squeezes] and it just splattered against the mirror. He kept saying, ‘You didn’t give me any receipts.’ What am I gonna do? But honestly in that moment I felt the punches, but they weren’t any worse than anything I felt before. But to him, that shows how much of a pro he is. Bret [Hart] has always prided himself on how he’s never hurt anyone. You could barely feel him in the ring and stuff, and that’s amazing. I think Steve was the same way, so he prided himself on not killing people and that night he knew he was killing me. But to me it was not any worse than other guys.”
On the offscreen angle with Cody Rhodes at Bad Blood: “It wasn’t me. That was Triple H. That was his idea. He felt confident in doing it that way. I was not sure. I’m like I don’t know, is there even going to be enough people there? It turns out he was completely right, there was and yeah, it’s just a different way of telling the stories and he’s got a different mentality than Vince had. It’s really interesting and people really responded to it. The same thing with Randy, the way I ended up ultimately turning on Randy [Orton]. It was on TV, but it was done differently. It was something that was released later as well and you just kind of caught the tail end of it on TV, but then they did the security footage after. He wants to tell stories differently, he’s willing to try stuff out and see what sticks and I think that makes the show way more interesting. It doesn’t mean it’s always gonna work, there might be sometimes it doesn’t land, but we’re trying different things and new things, and I think that’s so important in wrestling. When it gets monotonous and repetitive, no matter how good the matches are and the promos are.
“If you feel like you’ve seen it before, and it’s ok that you’ve seen it before, if you see a rematch once or twice, great. But there were times over I’d say in 2008-2009, and I was an avid fan. I would never miss any WWE shows, even when I was an independent wrestler traveling the world, but I started paying a lot less attention in 08-09 because I felt like this is literally the same thing every single week. There were times where even when I was here, like 2016-2017 I felt like we just did this two weeks ago and now we’re doing it again. To me, when it gets like that it’s just not the way we need to do things. I think we need different things. There’s new things. We need to try stuff, and it has to feel unpredictable and exciting.”
On attacking Vince McMahon: “He just talked all kinds of shit. He’s shaking my hand and just saying, I don’t remember what he said, but he was really trying to provoke me because he wanted to make sure I was going to lay in that headbutt. Little did he know I was already planning on laying it in because I had worked for him for two years at that point, I wasn’t going to miss that chance. So I did and yeah, it was a pretty insane moment. When he came up with the blood and everything I was like whoa, here we go. But my favorite part of that whole thing was after, it’s a moment that was only seen. I don’t think it was on TV, maybe only caught by digital. As everybody’s tending to Vince I’m walking in the back and I turn around to look at the ring. I’m just looking at the ring, and I hear kind of like a rumble in the crowd.
“I go to turn, and as I turn Stephanie’s right there in my face. She looks furious. She just looks at me and goes, ‘Get the f— to the back!’ And I go, okay, and I turn around. Look, I really like Stephanie a lot. She’s been great, just been so supportive of not just me, but everybody. When Hunter was running NXT and we all got there at the same time, my crop of NXT guys me, Sami, Finn, Bayley, Becky, Charlotte… Stephanie would be at the NXT shows quite a bit and she was just always so supportive and so just proud of us. And yeah, it was great. It’s like that whole generation of NXT was so special, not just because of the talent there, but the support we had from all the trainers to Dusty, Hunter and Stephanie. They really felt like we were to a degree kind of their kids and they were trying to get us out into the world. That was really special to be around that kind of energy.”
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