John Cena looks back on feuding with Kevin Owens in 2015 upon Owens’ main roster debut.
Back in 2015, Owens came to the main roster with a chip on his shoulder. However, that was not the only thing on his shoulder at the time as Owens came up as NXT Champion.
His debut would occur as Cena was in the midst of his run as WWE United States Champion. A signature of this run as champion for Cena was the usage of open challenges. Throughout his rain, Cena set the challenges and received a lot of praise for the matches he produced in this timespan.
However, when Owens interrupted Cena, it was not to answer the challenge. Instead, Owens was out to make a name for himself off the back of Cena’s name.
In a new video for WWE’s YouTube channel, Cena reflected on the rivalry with KO.
“The audience was wanting something new. Even me with the United States Championship is still, ‘Oh, they’re still investing in this guy. Will someone new knock him off?’ Who’s attitudinal, who you kind of don’t know what to expect on your first impression. I think all of those things together, it was the right person to do it, and the right moment in time to do it. I just think it was a situation where Kevin, as a new performer, becomes a member of the roster and goes to the absolute limit and brings the best out of me, and in tune, I kind of have him a chance to showcase what he could do, which is a whole lot, and I thought it was a very good start to the audience getting to know KO.”
John Cena
The pair would go on to have matches at three PPVs that year, with Owens shocking Cena at Elimination Chamber in a non title matchup.
H/T to Fightful for transcription
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