DETROIT, MI - He's currently one of the most hated WWE Superstars in the biz, and that's not a bad thing. We caught up with WWE superstar Kevin Owens ahead of a big event at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
Owens and other WWE Smackdown Live superstars will be in Detroit on Wednesday, December 27, 2017 at 7:30pm for the WWE Live Holiday Tour.
Owens and his good friend Sami Zayn are wreaking havok on Smackdown Live, and while Owens says he doesn't care whether he gets booed or cheered, he does care about getting a big reaction from the crowd.
"I just try to listen to strong reaction. To me the best reaction is a mix of both boos and cheers. John Cena and Roman Reigns get insane reactions where half the crowd loves them and half the crowd despises them. When you're in the ring waiting for your opponent, whether it's John or Roman, you get hit by this crazy noise. It's people almost competing with each other. The guy who's booing one of them is trying to be louder than the guy cheering. It makes for a special atmosphere. That's really what I'm striving for."
Owens has a lot of memories of Detroit. Two recent ones and one from his early wrestling days come to mind.
"I wrestled in Detroit many times before getting to WWE. There was one match me and El Generico (Zayn) wrestled Nigel McGuinness and Claudio Castagnoli (Cesaro). That was a really fun match that I look back on fondley. I have a lot of memories like that, and WWE Hell in a Cell just happened. I'll never forget fighting on top of a cell with Shane McMahon. That was something really special at Little Caesars Arena."
"I have a friend who lives in Detroit that works at the Detroit Zoo. I had a chance to visit with Sami. My friend took us around. We met the zookeepers. We got a backstage tour of the zoo. It was cool. I have plenty of fond memories of Detroit."
Owens also has fond memories of WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels. He's the one guy he'd love to go back in time and wrestle.
"Michaels is the reason I became a wrestler in the first place. I saw him when I was 11. I was a scrawny kid at the time. People thought I was 7 or 8. So to see the smallest guy on the show be the best guy on the show really spoke to me. I said if he can do it, I can do it. Now I get to share different pieces of his wisdom with him when he comes to a show here or there. I try to sit as close to him as I can and listen to him and discuss wrestling, family and life. It's so great to talk about those things with someone I look up to so much. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have been in the ring with him."
When he's not wrestling, Owens says he likes to spend what little down time he has with his wife and kids.
"We moved to Orlando recently. We still have a residence in Montreal, but live in Orlando. We like to go to Disney and Universal. Just doing cool stuff with the kids."
Owens says he doesn't care if his kids follow in his footsteps. Whatever makes them happy.
"I don't hope for it, but if they want to then they're more than welcome. I have no preference. I just want them to be happy. I always pursued this dream, but for the first 7 years that I was a wrestler, I worked at a gas station part time. I finished high school, but still needed a job to make money to live on. I was lucky enough to have the boss to give me time off I needed to wrestle. I think you can be happy doing whatever you want in life as long as it fulfills you can you get something out of it."
If you go:
WWE Live Holiday Tour at Little Caesars Arena on Wed., Dec. 27, 2017 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $25 - $115. Other WWE superstars scheduled to appear (subject to change) are: AJ Styles, Jinder Mahal, Randy Orton, Shinsuke Nakamura, Sami Zayn, Bobby Roode and Dolph Ziggler.