10 Times The Past Buried WWE's Future

Kevin Owens is an all-time great talent. Superb as both a babyface and a monster heel, he has indie credibility, shone like a diamond in NXT, has multiple WrestleMania main events under his belt, and was able to thrive under the most difficult of WWE circumstances: Vince McMahon's creative. 

Arguably, Owens' greatest moment on WWE's main roster came when he won a fatal four-way on the 29th August, 2016 episode of Monday Night Raw to win the Universal Championship.

Coming after Finn Balor's unfortunate injury stopped him from having a run with that new title, Kevin Owens defeated Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Big Cass(!) to be given the task of establishing the championship as one of WWE's premier titles. Owens managed that with ease, showing exactly why he deserved to compete at the top of the company. He went through Seth Rollins in a Hell in a Cell war and racked up multiple wins over both Rollins and Roman Reigns during an impressive 188-day run with the Universal Championship.

Then Kevin ran into Goldberg at Fastlane 2017. Losing his title to a 50-year-old man was questionable, but the manner of KO's defeat flushed months of hard work down the toilet of establishing him as a top-tier talent. Like he was some kind of local enhancement talent, Owens was beaten in just 22 seconds.

This was just one of a billion reasons why new stars were unable to break through Vince McMahon's glass ceiling during McMahon's last decade in charge of WWE creative.