Kevin Owens looked back on his road to WWE following his win at WrestleMania 39 and shared an emotional message.
In the main event of the first night of WWE WrestleMania 39, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defeated The Usos to win the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship. The victory was particularly special, as Owens and Zayn are long-time friends who previously teamed up together in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla and Ring of Honor, among other promotions.
Speaking at the WrestleMania 39 post-show press conference on April 1, Owens shared his thoughts on their triumph. He recalled how, when they were at the top of the ramp, he told Zayn that none of it would have happened without their time in PWG and the opportunities Super Dragon, the booker of the company, gave them. He stated that it meant a lot to win the titles in California, the home of PWG.
I’ll just say what we said at the top of the ramp, after everything had kind of set in and everything that happened, and we realized what we had accomplished and where we were at this point, we walked up the ramp, we looked at the WrestleMania set, we turned around and we saw the sea of people, the stadium,” Owens said. “The one thing that I said to him is, ‘None of this would have happened without Super Dragon and PWG,’ which is where we made our name here in California.
“Without the opportunities that he gave us, I really don’t think things would have turned out the way they did for us. So it meant a lot to be here, to do it here together, and it’s just really hard to put into words.”
Later in their portion of the scrum, Owens praised The Usos before he emphasized that, in addition to Super Dragon and PWG, Mark and Jay Briscoe deserved credit for helping them get there. Owens noted that Jay passed away recently and stated that he hoped he and Zayn made Jay proud.
“The Usos, even though everybody loves them, everybody appreciates them, they are under-appreciated. They’re the best. Unbelievable. I don’t have enough good words for them. Also, I said PWG helped us get here, Super Dragon helped us get here. There’s two guys that really helped us get here. Their names are Mark and Jay Briscoe. We lost Jay recently. I really hope we made him proud tonight. Great guys, and we really miss them.”
Owens and Zayn feuded with The Briscoes during their time in ROH, and they clashed in a number of unforgettable matches that helped cement Owens and Zayn (then known as Kevin Steen and El Generico) as breakout stars on the independent scene.
Jay Briscoe passed away in a car accident on January 17. Mark Briscoe recently reflected on his first match at a ROH pay-per-view following the loss of his brother; check out his comments here.
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