Kevin Owens Praises Roman Reigns, Says He’s Still ‘One Of The Boys’

In an interview with Fightful, Kevin Owens said that in spite of all the success Roman Reigns has had in his career, he’s still “one of the boys”. Here are highlights:

On Roman Reigns: “I’ve always admired Roman a lot, for a lot of reasons. To me, no matter the amount of success he achieved and how he clearly was the face of the company, he was always just one of the boys. He never had his own locker room like other people would. I’m talking like, you can pretty much peg their own locker room when they come around. Those are the guys who come once in every blue moon, but there were guys on our roster that were there every day and they had their own locker room and it just blew my mind. Roman was never one of those guys. Now the situation is different, obviously, because of the entire process. I’m not sure if he has his own locker room or if he’d still be in ours, but that’s something I always admired about him. He stayed down to earth when some other people may not have as been down to earth as he was in his position. Whether people like to admit it or not, and now people are coming around to it, but people refused to accept that he’s a pretty talented professional wrestler. There. That’s nice.”

On Aleister Black: “He’s a very creative guy, really imaginative and very passionate as well about his own personality, imagine, character, and the way he’s portrayed. That’s something you gotta do and be accountable for yourself sometimes because it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. That might have happened to him over the last year. I’m sure he’ll bounce back because, to me, the little I’ve interacted with him, he’s too passionate to fall by the wayside.”

On Apollo Crews: “I love Apollo. He’s a great guy. He’s got his family that he loves. Outside the ring, he’s all about his family. I’m a lot like that. So is [Mustafa] Ali. When they asked me to do Ride Along, they wanted me to do it with Sami [Zayn]. I’m like, ‘We’ve already done one.’ People won’t be entertained by me and Sami the way you think they will be because we’ve known each other too long. It’s not the same. I asked for Ali and Crew and they said ‘yeah, sure.’ It’s just a bunch of wrestling dads driving around in [Los Angeles] and it was really enjoyable. I love Apollo. Another extremely talented guy and I had a little short stint as his partner and on-screen buddy, which was reflective of our relationship behind the scenes. I’d love to see him get to do more. He was US Champion for a bit and that was cool. Just one of the many things he can accomplish.”