Kevin Owens Gives Fans Some Hope for an NXT Return

Back in November WWE started teasing the idea of having Kevin Owens move from the Monday Night Raw roster back to his old stomping grounds of NXT. It started off when Triple H pleaded with Owens, saying that he wasn’t be used properly because he didn’t fit the typical wrestler mold on Raw, but that he could thrive again on the Black and Gold Brand. Owens was interrupted by Undisputed Era at the time, and decided to get some revenge on the faction by making a surprise appearance at NXT TakeOver: WarGames. His team, consisting of Tommaso Ciampa, Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic, beat The Undisputed Era after Ciampa pinned Cole.

However the following week Owens was right back on Raw and kicked off a feud with Seth Rollins that’s still going as of this week. This seemed to smash any fans’ hope of him going back to NXT, but he left the door for it slightly open when he appeared on The Bump this week.

“The NXT Title is the top title on NXT and just the way that NXT handles itself and the way people view NXT I think that title is just as prestigious as the WWE one, the Universal one. If I were given a chance — like if tomorrow they came tome and they said ‘you’re going back to NXT, but you’re going to be competing for the NXT Title’ — first of all, if they came to me and said ‘you’re going back to NXT’ without the NXT Title part I’d be ‘Okay.’ But if the NXT Title was on the line as well I would jump on that offer,” Owens said.

Owens made his NXT debut back at the NXT TakeOver: R Evolution event in December 2014. He quickly captured the NXT Championship during a bitter feud with Sami Zayn, and then used that title run to catapult himself to the Raw roster for a feud with John Cena. He made the argument during the interview that the NXT Championship is already more important that the United States and Intercontinental Championships, both titles that Owens has held at least twice.

This week’s Raw saw Owens and Samoa Joe team with a returning Big Show to face Seth Rollins and The Authors of Pain in a six-man tag match. The bout was thrown out when Rollins introduced a steel chair, but a rematch with a “Fist Fight” stipulation was announced for next week’s Raw.