15 Things We Learned From Kevin Owens On Talk Is Jericho
3. The Influence Of Dusty Rhodes
KO talks about how Dusty Rhodes was a master at motivation while he was working with the developing talent at the Performance Center and Jericho wants to know if Dusty was an influence on him while he was in NXT.
Kevin reveals that he only knew The American Dream for ten months, but during that brief time the late, great legend influenced him more than people who had been a part of his career for fifteen years. He says Dusty was larger than life but confesses that it's hard to put into words exactly how he influenced him.
One thing he got from Rhodes was becoming more comfortable with not being a cookie-cutter type wrestler, because Dusty was the ultimate example of someone being a tremendous success without fitting the mold of the prototypical star. He says that Dusty was Dusty all the time, and in a way that's the reason why he stopped wearing the suit because he was focusing more on being himself.
"Ultimately the lasting impression that Dusty left on me is that you can be yourself here and everything will be fine."