News On Big Names At Survivor Series; Kevin Owens Talks Struggles In NXT
Photo: WWE
WWE Planning On Big Guests At Survivor Series?
We reported earlier this week that WWE was considering John Cena as the special guest referee for the Champion vs Champion match at Survivor Series between Universal Champion Brock Lesnar and WWE Champion Jinder Mahal. The reason for Cena’s name being floated is apparently so Brock will have a big name in the ring with him (I guess this means WWE doesn’t consider Mahal a “big name”; color me shocked), and also because Cena cannot wrestle at the show because of movie commitments.
If Cena cannot appear, Vince McMahon is reportedly considering Steve Austin or The Rock as special guest referees for the match. The idea is supposedly that it would be intriguing to see Lesnar in the ring with either of the two legends…even though it would never lead anywhere.
Kevin Owens Talks Struggles In NXT & Dusty Rhodes
During a recent appearance on Edge & Christian’s podcast, Kevin Owens opened up about some of the struggles he faced when adjusting to NXT.
“When I got to the Performance Center, I wasn’t sure… So I knew who I was. I’ve known who I’ve been as a performer for a long time, but I wasn’t sure, when I got to the Performance Center, if that’s what they wanted me to be. All I know is William Regal came to a PWG show in California, saw me wrestle, and I was offered a tryout and that whole process took a little while, took a couple of months.
“I got to the Performance Center a couple of months later and I still wasn’t sure who they wanted me to be in a way because I did the tryout, I cut the promo the way I talk, I didn’t try to be anybody different when I was cutting the promo, and as far as, like, I did a little match there and I wrestled the match my way except for some reason they had me, at the time, I was always pretty much a heel and they had me work as a babyface, so that kind of felt weird. So even in the match, I wrestled my own style, but I wasn’t being myself. And I had, like, this is WWE in my head and ‘I can’t go in my shorts and my cutoff t-shirt’. I had a nice singlet made. I wrestled in the singlet, which was completely not me at that time because I wrestled in a singlet 15 years ago, 10 years ago, whatever it was, 12 years ago, on the independents. But then, eventually, I transitioned into the more street fight-looking gear and that was definitely more me. But in my head, ‘I can’t wrestle in WWE in street fight-looking gear,’ so I wasn’t sure which parts of the tryout they had liked: was it the promo that was entirely me or if they were they like, ‘no, it’s the way he wrestled’. Like, my mind was kind of playing tricks on me because nobody’s telling me anything concrete and everybody has opinions.”
He said that the late Dusty Rhodes was instrumental in making him feel more comfortable in NXT and giving him confidence that everything would be fine.
“[Christian] kind of told me, ‘look, you’ve just got to be you’ and that resonated with me. And then, over time, I got to know Dusty Rhodes better. And Dusty and I got closer and closer and Dusty echoed the same thing, so that definitely went a long way in me getting the confidence to just be me. And it’s exactly like [Christian] said, if you go too far, they’ll pull you back, but you don’t want to [not go far enough]. Yeah, exactly. You don’t want to be too hesitant and not give everything you could give. Then, you might be holding back something that they could love.
“I only got to work with Dusty for 10 months from the time I got to the Performance Center and then till the time I got called up on the road. And about a month later, he passed away. But, man, the time I had with Dusty is invaluable and I’m so thankful for it. I was fortunate to learn from a lot of people throughout my career, but nobody made as much of an impact in such a short time on me as Dusty did.”
The post News On Big Names At Survivor Series; Kevin Owens Talks Struggles In NXT appeared first on TopRopePress.com – Wrestling News, WWE News, TNA News, Wrestling Results.