9 Former PWG Champions Who Now Wrestle In WWE

by John Bills

1. Kevin Owens

Kevin Owens John Cena Elimination Chamber 2015
WWE

Kevin Owens' days with the WWE Universal Championship may well be coming to an end, but the man born Kevin Steen can sleep soundly knowing that no man has held the PWG World Championship on more occasions.

Steen was a three-time PWG World Champion, defeating AJ Styles, Claudio Castagnoli and El Generico (of course) respectively. His final run proved the most successful. Steen held the title for 259 days before losing to Adam Cole at Mystery Vortex in 2012.

Steen was also successful in tag team action, winning the PWG World Tag Team Championships on three occasions with two different partners. Steen and Generico were champions on two occasions, overcoming PAC & Roderick Strong and The Dynasty, respectively, to become champions. Steen also won the tag titles with Super Dragon at Appetite for Destruction, defeating The Young Bucks at Fear in 2011. They never lost the titles; they were forced to vacate them when Dragon fractured his heel.

Rather curiously, Steen had little success in the many tournaments he competed in during his time in PWG. Steen never made it further than the quarter finals of BOLA, losing in the first round of the competition more often than not, and he also came up short in his many attempts to win the DDT4. Steen only made it to one BOLA final in fact, losing at the final hurdle in 2011. The man who defeated him? Take a wild guess.

In entertainment, the old adage states that if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. In pro wrestling, this could well be true of PWG, as the company has proved to be something of a conveyer belt for the best in the world on their way to WWE. The current roster is stuffed with men who could be the superstars of tomorrow.

It would be no surprise to see Jeff Cobb, Dalton Castle or Zack Sabre Jr. at the top of the wrestling world, sooner rather than later.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.