What if WWE gives Kevin Owens the CM Punk push?
On the August 27 edition of Monday Night Raw, after a tough loss to Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens announced that he quit. This isn’t the first time that WWE has played with a worked shoot angle in which a wrestler seemingly walks out on the company. Heck, Dolph Ziggler worked a similar storyline on SmackDown at the turn of the year.
When an angle like this comes up, though, fans are tempted to think of the highest profile, and arguably best-executed story like it. That leads us back to CM Punk in the summer of 2011 when he won the WWE Championship from John Cena on the last night of his contract and seemed to walk out on WWE with the title.
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Owens isn’t a reigning champion, nor does he look likely to win it soon. Nonetheless, WWE could work out some similar storyline mechanics, particularly for a talented talker who is very much over with hardcore wrestling fans, much like Punk was seven years ago. This article speculates what might happen if WWE gives Owens the full Punk treatment.
#5 Kevin Owens appears at All-In
WWE does not historically acknowledge other wrestling promotions but famously allowed CM Punk to explicitly reference Ring of Honor and New Japan in his celebrated Pipe Bomb worked shoot promo. Mentioning these companies drove home the realism of what Punk was saying. It was also a precursor to NXT as we know it today, and WWE acknowledging other companies in order to better establish the credibility of new signees to the more casual wrestling fan.
It’s admittedly a reach for WWE to allow talent under contract to appear at All-In—the show promoted by Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks that may be the closest thing to direct competition on US soil that WWE has had since they bought out WCW. If WWE wanted to drive home the illusion that Owens is really gone, an appearance at this show would be one of the most convincing demonstrations WWE could muster.
Moreover, with WWE having reportedly made overtures to the key talent appearing at this show, allowing Owens appear could have a transactional element—offering up his services as a gesture of goodwill and support for someone on their way (back) to WWE.