10 Long-Term WWE Pay Offs You Should Be Excited For

8. Kevin Owens Just Shows Up

Kevin Owens Seth Rollins
WWE.com

It was wrestling twitter supremo @MithGifs that brought into view an extremely unique relationship between the dovetailing careers of Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens when 'The Beastslayer' laid into 'KO' in his post-Survivor Series b*llocking of the Raw roster.

The story told through a series of gifs and moments between the pair was one that informs a deep-rooted jealousy within Rollins for the supposed easy ride he perceives Owens to have had during his time in WWE. This is particularly potent as an angle considering how much we know about Owens' wretched experiences at times. He is not man gifted opportunity after opportunity from his boss, but the narrative that multi-time champion of everything Rollins earnestly believes this creates quite the layered plot for an enormous payoff.

"You just show up, you lazy piece of crap" was one of the critiques Seth spat at the 'Prizefighter' before getting levelled with a Stunner, but the dig went deeper than the pair's pay-per-view loss 24 hours earlier. He'd told Owens to get into better shape to get signed by WWE, but Owens made it anyway. Upon finding out about Owens' debut against Cena, then-WWE Champion Rollins made a telling and pointed scene of it backstage. A year later, Triple H would literally hand the Universal Championship to Owens and Rollins' expense. There's a picture of them from 2015 holding titles in the Performance Center blissfully unaware of how their careers were about to switch places. And on and on it goes.

Owens get handed precisely nothing, but as the genesis for a long-awaited programme against his former friend, he's been given the world.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett