411’s WWE 365: Kevin Owens Report: Vince McMahon’s Reaction To Owens/Jericho WM Match, More

411’s WWE 365: Kevin Owens Report

-A new documentary series out for the WWE Network as they are expanding on their WWE 24 series and looking at a year in the career of a Superstar. In this case it is Kevin Owens and his year starting with winning the Universal Title.

-In the opening package Owens says he was obsessed with being a WWE Superstar and it’s where he belongs. It should be noted this is being narrated by Michael Rapaport.

-This chronicles the career of Owens from SummerSlam 2016 to SummerSlam 2017. Owens says the last 12 months of his career can be described in one word: Extreme. It has been extreme highs and lows. He says he has never been happy with his career as he always wants more. He says he has had an amazing career as he came in with John Cena and then became the IC Champion. There are only a few guys you can think are the top superstars and that is what he wants to be known as.

-Day 1: SummerSlam 2016: It is the second biggest show of the year and Owens says he was hoping to have a big singles match. He wasn’t unhappy, but he wasn’t as happy as he should have been. He puts over that Enzo and Cass were excited to be working with him and Jericho and at the time he wasn’t even considering that. After the match Owens says he looked up to Jericho and enjoyed tagging with him, but he wants to close the show and not open it. So he is looking towards next year. Looking back he should have enjoyed it more and he should have appreciated it more.

-He discusses his relationship with Balor and how they became best friends while at the Performance Center. He had to be there to witness Finn win the Universal Title. Owens says he knew something was wrong as they show Balor taking the buckle bomb into the barrier. It sucked to see it happen, but Owens knew there was an opportunity as they needed a new Universal Champion. The cameras catch up with Owens before the show and he calls the match to crown a new champion the biggest of his career and he has been waiting to be a champion for 21 years. He says winning the title turned out like nothing he expected.

-They show highlights from the match and then the finish with HHH returning to pedigree Reigns and then Rollins to give KO the win. Owens says if you look at the footage he looks blown away and that was a legit reaction from him. In his head he went back to seeing a show in Montreal with HHH standing on the ropes doing his pose and now here he was handing him the Universal Title. He talks about the moment he had in the ring with HHH and says it was as real as it gets. From the time he was 11 years old he pictured that moment a thousand times and calls it incredible.

-Owens goes backstage and gets a standing ovation from the boys with HHH and Foley being the first to see him. He mentions how Foley told him about the night he won his first title and how Vince was there seething on the ramp, but he knew deep down Vince was smiling. They show Owens going over to Vince, who has a massive smile on his face, and getting a big hug. I always love seeing these moments where guys win a World Title for the first time and how real it gets. They show KO doing a photo shoot with his newly won title and then he talks about needing to call his wife and kids.

-They show footage of Owens interacting with his kids on his journey. He also felt guilty because Balor should be the champion and he was one of the first calls he made. It made it special for Balor to be happy for him.

-Day 16: KO says he wants to make his reign memorable no matter how long it lasts. He was excited at the idea of making the title mean something. His job was to make people care about a title that hadn’t been around for very long. He gets through Rollins at Hell in a Cell and builds up his friendship with Chris Jericho. The feud with Rollins rolls along and Owens wants to prove that he should be the face of Monday Night RAW.

-Day 120: Roadblock in Pittsburgh, PA (WOOO, home of your back to back and 5 time Stanley Cup Champions). They show footage of Jericho and KO from Ride Along. Owens says at the time he was too much in his head to enjoy teaming with Jericho at SummerSlam, but realized now how cool it was. Hilarious moment from a show where Owens calls Jericho The Goat and Jericho struggles before calling KO The Donkey. Owens reaction is priceless as he says “yeah, I don’t care.” They talk about Vince cracking up at that joke. Owens says it was hilarious teaming with Jericho and they became friends so everyone was enjoying what they were doing. Their run as Best Friends was fantastic and this just highlights it even more.

-Day 177: Las Vegas: Festival of Friendship. Owens says Jericho was in rare form that night as he chuckles. “Sculpt it in man!” How can you not love this segment? We had sculptures, paintings, magicians, people making the list, Gillberg getting destroyed and then the fantastic turn with Owens debuting the List of KO before destroying Jericho. Just perfect execution and one of the best moments on RAW in years. Owens felt it would be perfect with the story they told to defend the Universal Title at WrestleMania against Jericho, but things change.

-Day 197: Fastlane in Milwaukee: Goldberg vs Owens. In a blink of an eye Owens loses the Universal Title to Goldberg due to Jericho’s interference. Owens won’t hide the fact that he was disappointed that he didn’t get to have a proper match with Goldberg, but he loved it as when he was 15 he hated Goldberg. He was a WWE fan and hated WCW so that meant he hated Goldberg and if someone told him that nearly 20 years later he would be defending a World Title in the WWE against Goldberg he would have laughed at him. He puts it over as being part of his incredible journey.

-Day 225: WrestleMania 33: Orlando: This is the moment Owens has always wanted as he gets a singles match at Mania. He talks about being in Orlando 9 years earlier, sitting in the crowd to watch Mania XXIV. It is surreal that 9 years later he is facing Jericho. While filming in the car he pulls up to AJ Styles and talks to him about how fun it was when they were both champions and hopefully it will happen again. Owens says being in the position he is today is pretty big and he wants to prove why he and Jericho should have been the Main Event. It must be noted again that the runway for Mania was insane. They show a highlight package of their match and I remember it being good, but not the blow away match everyone wanted.

“Nine years ago for WrestleMania 24, I was sitting in the crowd way up there in the bleachers. So to come back nine years later to be a focal point of WrestleMania with Chris Jericho, who we actually saw perform at WrestleMania 24… to get to work with Chris the last six months, and now to get in the ring with him at WrestleMania is quite surreal.”

-Backstage Owens is winding down from the match and he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He says he was upset and disappointed in the match. He goes to talk to Vince and asks “are we good,” and Vince shoots back “No.” Vince was not happy with the match at all as it wasn’t what he was looking for from the two of them. It was the first time he ever got back to Vince being unhappy with one of his matches. He took that as a failure and says it wasn’t a good feeling at all.

-Day 234: Owens gets traded to SmackDown Live and while exciting, he felt it was a sign that he wasn’t on the right track. He got the idea to start calling himself the Face of America as it would be obnoxious. He also decided to cut his hair, shave, and start wearing a suit. It was his way to dust himself off after the disappointment of Mania and get back on track. His run as US Champion was great as he played a wonderful douchebag that we could all appreciate.

-Day 321: MSG house show: AJ Styles pins Owens to become the new United States Champion. Owens started asking himself where he goes now as he was losing his identity. He says he is in uncharted waters and he needs to go back to the drawing board.

-Day 337: Battleground: Owens regains the US Title in a match that wasn’t well received. The big picture doesn’t seem relevant as Owens didn’t deliver what was needed. He lost the title not long after and it setup a rematch at SummerSlam with Shane as the special referee.

-Day 365: SummerSlam: Brooklyn: Owens returns to Brooklyn one year after this documented journey started. KO says it has been a weird year in a way. He talks to a kid who told him that the match he had last year was awesome and he remembers thinking it wasn’t awesome at the time. Last year he never would have thought this is the match he would be doing a year later. He talks about watching Shane’s matches as a kid and how Shane would doing anything. He calls it special to have a match with Shane as the special referee. For Owens this was a chance at redemption, but first he catches up with Balor in the ring before the show. They joke around with each other and Owens notes that Balor’s injury worked out for him. He says it is great to see Finn healthy and wishes he was around him more often.

-KO calls the match with AJ at SummerSlam a high caliber match and he has to do everything he can to make it memorable. He has a feeling though that it will be pretty easy to make it memorable. Highlights from the match and the ending with Shane waving off KO’s win due to AJ getting his bottom foot on the rope. AJ ends up winning with The Styles Clash and the controversy with Shane kicked off the next angle for KO. This time Vince tells him backstage the match was exactly what they were looking for and tells him to go take care of his arm. Kevin says that he isn’t happy and he isn’t unhappy. He gets his forearm wrapped up and says he doesn’t know how to feel. He talks about Vince hating his Mania match and he expected the same tonight, but Vince tells him he delivered. That should be good enough for him, but he doesn’t know if it is. He just seems confused and even says as much.

“I get in my own head. I don’t know that I delivered the way I should have. Vince says I did, so that should be good enough for me, right? But it’s not, I don’t know. Maybe that’s what we should call this 365: Kevin Owens 365: I Don’t Know.”

-30 minutes later KO comes back and shows a text he got from Steve Austin saying that he loved the match. He then says that he is fine and seems in better spirits. He talks about how hard it is to live with things when you are never satisfied, but he has gotten better at taking a step back and looking at things. He talks about the highs of winning the Universal Title and 8 months later hitting the lows of Mania. He talks about the pressure he puts on himself and he doesn’t know what the future holds, but he will make sure he is relevant.

-Before wrapping up they quickly cover Owens getting back on track with the headbutt to Vince and the win over Shane in Hell in a Cell. Rapaport wraps things up by saying Owens is still on his quest to be a top guy in the WWE taking it one day at a time.

-This was both fascinating and a lot of fun to watch. It was a great look into the pressure these guys put on themselves and explored the ups and downs of being a WWE Superstar. I hope they continue with this series and this isn’t just a one off because I want more. I know some only care about stuff in the ring, but I am a sucker for things like this. I want access to what happens behind the curtain and reaction from the guys about things in their career as it happens.