Kevin Owens explains why he isn't frustrated with Apollo Crews and Commander Azeez.
On the June 4 episode of WWE SmackDown, Kevin Owens was attacked backstage by Commander Azeez prior to his Intercontinental Championship match against Apollo Crews. Azeez was banned from ringside for the bout but chose to make his presence felt ahead of time. The plan worked, as Apollo was able to best an injured KO and retain his title.
Appearing on Talking Smack, Owens said that he isn't frustrated with what happened, acknowledging that he'd be a hypocrite if he felt that way. He acted similarly when he was Champion and points out how Apollo and Roman never reached this level of success until they started having other people fight their battles for them.
"There's no frustration," Owens explained. "No, because you see, Apollo Crews, he's got the title -- If I was mad at Apollo Crews for the way he's handled things; if I was mad at Roman Reigns for the way he handled things when he and I were competing for the title, I'd be a really huge hypocrite because I did all that stuff when I was the champion. I had people help me, I had people fight my battles for me. I did a lot of underhanded shit to a lot of people. It's fine because Apollo and Roman -- both those guys had a measure of success before they chose to go that route, but it was never like the success they're enjoying now."
Owens believes he deserves everything that has happened to him over the past year. Being able to spend nearly every day with his wife and kids has allowed him to move past a lot of the aforementioned frustrations. However, once WWE gets back to touring and he's travelling from town to town and doesn't have that support system, these things will become a problem again. The only thing that will fill the void of not seeing his family is being the Champion and representing the company. Here said the following:
"It's fine, I totally get it. Guess what, I deserve every single thing that's happened to me in the last year. I do. It's fine. I'll take the beatings, I'll take the frustration because ultimately the last year I got to spend it with my wife and my kids almost every day. But that's about to end now because we're going back on the road. That's when that stuff is going to become a problem. Because when that happens, I still get to go home and I see my wife and I see my kids right away and all that stuff disappears. But once I'm on the road, and I'm travelling, and I'm on airplanes, and I'm in cars, and I'm going to shows, and I'm away from my family, and the only thing that can make me feel better about not being with them is winning a title, carrying that title, being a representative of WWE and this stuff keeps happening to me, then we're going to have a problem."
The segment concluded with Owens saying that Apollo can rest easy for a little while as he is going to turn his attention to Sami Zayn. After the match on SmackDown, Owens was attacked by Zayn who continues to feel hard done by the way his longtime friend has treated him and dismissed his conspiracy theories.
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