In 2005, Kevin Owens had a chance meeting with Steve Austin at an airport. Austin's in-ring career was over while Owens was just getting started.
Seeing an opportunity to speak to one of the biggest draws of all-time, Owens, who was flanked by Sami Zayn, pounced to get advice from "Stone Cold."
"It's something that defined my career, it really did," Owens told Ryan Satin on Out of Character when discussing his run in with Austin. "It sounds like an exaggeration to say my career would have never turned out the way it did without that meeting, but it's really true. I met him in 2005 in an airport in Texas. Sami Zayn and I were connecting on the way to a PWG show. We're connecting, it's our second connection because we'd get the cheapest flights possible. We had driven from Montreal to Albany in the middle of the night, we haven't slept, we fly to Chicago, connect to Texas, and then to LA. We're exhausted and on the connection. We're walking to the gate, I get a drink of water, and out of the corner of my, I see Stone Cold, clearly trying to be on his own but I was like, 'Man, I have to talk to him. This is my idol.' I go over to Sami, and I don't want to alert everybody, 'Hey, we're going to go talk to Stone Cold.' He follows me, he thought I said, 'let's go fight these guys.' As we're walking towards Austin, he goes, 'who are we fighting?' 'We're not gonna go fight, we're going to talk to Stone Cold Steve Austin.' He looks and goes, 'That's not Stone Cold...oh shit, it is.'"
Owens continued, revealing the advice Austin gave to them.
"We walked up to him, we introduced ourselves and said we're independent wrestlers on our way to California for a show. He's super nice, very friendly. We shot the shit a little about the business and how the independents work and stuff because he obviously hadn't been on the independent scene in a while. They called the flight, the first-class passengers, of course Mr. Fancy Pants is in first class, so he had to go. I go, 'if you had one piece of advice for us, what is it?' He goes, 'just keep running your mouth. Never stop running your mouth.' Then he goes, 'That plancha shit will kill you,' as he said that, he looked at Sami. He figured from the body types, one is more likely to plancha than the other. Then he left, got on the plane, we walked past him as we were boarding. That piece of advice, I immediately put it into work. That was the weekend I won the PWG Title for the first time against AJ Styles. I was talking shit the whole match, non-stop, and it became a staple of my independent career and now into WWE. It's one of the things people enjoy most about my work. It helped take me to a level I hadn't attained at that time. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn't given me that piece of advice," recalled Owens.
Owens has not only listened to Austin and kept up the trash talking throughout his career, he has also, with permission, used the Stone Cold Stunner as his finisher.
Owens is currently aligned with Seth Rollins on WWE Raw. The duo will challenge for the Raw Tag Team Championships on the March 7 episode against Alpha Academy (Otis & Chad Gable) and RK-Bro (Randy Orton & Riddle).
If you missed anything from WWE Raw, check out Fightful's full report on the show by clicking here.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
