This weekend former WWE Universal and United States Champion Kevin Owens will be locked inside Hell In A Cell against SmackDown Live Commissioner Shane McMahon. “KO” recently joined CBS’ “In This Corner” podcast to promote the event and talked about a variety of professional wrestling topics.
One topic of discussion was how well Owens plays the role of a heel. Surprisingly, however, Owens says that he actually isn’t trying to be a heel:
“You know, people throw these words around so much; heel, babyfaces… shoot, kayfabe, work, all of this crap that they hear wrestlers say. I can honestly, genuinely say that I am not trying to be a heel. I don’t know if that makes me a good performer or a bad performer, I’m sure many veterans of the industry will have their opinions on what I just said, but I try to do the best performance I can, and I try and achieve the goal that I know is required of me.
“That always leads to people hating my guts and makes other people loving what I do. I always try to get the loudest reaction I can, whether it’s being booed out of the building or being cheered… nothing I do is in hopes of receiving either reaction. I just want people to be loud, and I want to elicit emotions and that’s what I always try for, so people ask me ‘how are you such a good heel?’
“I don’t know the answer, I’m just being me and I just go with what I need to do to get the job done on any show that I’m on and on any particular evening what’s required of me I try to achieve that and I go from there. If people enjoy my work, that’s great, but I don’t set out with a goal in terms of getting a reaction, I just try to do what I can to do it as good as I can.”
You can check out Kevin Owens’ full interview on the “In This Corner” podcast here.