Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn have a long and storied history together as partners, foes, and best friends in the wrestling industry. Prior to coming to the WWE, Owens (Kevin Steen) and Zayn (El Generico) traveled the roads together all over North America while learning their craft in the wrestling business. They also held tag team championship gold in multiple promotions but have yet to do so in WWE. However, Owens has talked about pitching the idea for another run alongside his long-time friend and so perhaps a WWE tag team champioship reign is yet to come.
ComicBook.com had a chance to speak with Owens recently and we asked him if he has a favorite match that he and Zayn have taken part in as a tag team.
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“It’s so tough to pick any match that he and I did together as tag team, because there’s been so many,” Owens responded. “Actually, I think my favorite one, if we’re talking just any of the matches we’ve done together, tag team wise, I want to say my favorite one was the most recent, or one of the most recent ones, that we’ve done where last year, in 2019, we wrestled The New Day on a pay-per-view (Stomping Grounds)… It was me and Sami against Woods and Big E. I really, really liked it a lot. It was a lot of fun, and we were the first match. The crowd was just molten hot, and ready to have a good time. That might be my favorite, and it’s probably not an answer anybody would expect, considering the history we have as a tag team. I look back on that one very fondly.”
Owens hasn’t been shy about the fact that he loves to pull pranks on Zayn. Just a couple of weeks ago, Owens published a video on his Twitter page where was hiding in the backseat of Zayn’s car (because he knew it would be unlocked) in an attempt to scare his buddy. Unfortunately, Zayn saw him and avoided the prank.
“I got to get the backseat one, and I have to record it so everybody can see it. I haven’t given up. I’ll get him somehow,” Owens told us.
We asked Owens if he had any funny, untold road stories with Zayn that he could share with us. Luckily, he had a couple of them that he hasn’t spoken about publicly (until now).
“I’ve talked about some of the pranks in the other interviews earlier this week. I’m not going to mention those. There’s a few memorable ones, and they always involve me startling him. One of the memorable ones is, when we’re on the independent scene, we travel together, and a lot of the times we drive from Montreal to Albany, to fly out of Albany, because the flights were cheaper if we were going to California, or stuff like that. The companies we wrestle for would ask us to do that. We’d end up driving through the night, it was 3:00 AM. We’d stop at a rest area, to use the restroom or whatever. It was pitch black. It’s the middle of the night, and there’s nobody there,” Owens said.
He continued, “For some reason, on one of those drives, I guess Sami just couldn’t get to the rest area. He’s like, ‘Pull over. I have to go pee outside.’ I’m like, ‘All right.’ We stop, and as he’s doing his business I notice he’s next to a bunch of bushes, some trees. I’m like, ‘All right.’ I had a can of Monster in my hand, I was near the car. In my head I’m like, ‘I wonder if I can throw this can so that it ends up hitting the leaves, and it makes noise and scares him.’ That was my plan. I did, and it was a perfect throw. I can’t put myself over enough for it. It landed exactly where it needed to land, so that he didn’t see it. It was close enough to him that he really thought some animal was coming out of the bushes. It really scared him. A lot. Once he realized what it was, because I burst out laughing, he was pretty upset. Thankfully, the damage wasn’t too bad. He still was able to do what he was doing without making it a problem. That one really made me laugh a lot.
“Then, there was another time, same thing, we’re at a rest area, it’s the middle of the night. We’re returning to the car and he’s on his side, and I’m on my side. We opened our doors and we’re about to step in, but before we step in, I stopped and I go, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ He’s like, ‘What?’ I’m looking at the trees far away. He goes, ‘What? What?’ I’m like, ‘Look, there’s someone there.’ He’s like, ‘Where?’ I’m like, ‘You can see his face. He’s looking at us.’ He goes, ‘Oh yeah.’ As soon as he says that, I just banged on top of the car, scared the shit out of him. There was nobody there. I suggested it, and his mind made it up. He’s like, ‘Oh yeah. I can see…’ That was pretty good, too. It’s mostly stuff like that. He’s never really gotten the chance to get me back. He’s tried a few times, but he’s just not as skilled as I am.”
Media: Please credit Ryan Droste and ComicBook.com when using quotes from this interview.
You can read the rest of our conversation with Kevin Owens from the following links:
