Sixteen years into his professional wrestling career, Kevin Owens has a hard time narrowing his favorite Northeast wrestling memory to just one. From special nights within the former ECW Arena in South Philadelphia to dramatic matches inside the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, Owens has shared many exceptional moments with fans from New Jersey and its surrounding states.
“The fans there were always some of the best,” Owens said via phone last week, hours before a WWE SmackDown television taping in Toledo, Ohio. “(The Northeast fans) might not be the easiest to impress, but they have always been kind to me.”
So Owens is happy to return this weekend for a meet and greet with his Garden State fans at noon Saturday, July 16, at iPlay America in Freehold. Doors open at 11 a.m.
Tickets are available at iPlayAmerica.com and start at $50 for the general package and $110 for the VIP package.
Of course, fans are not always pleased with the quick-witted provocateur. After years on the independent wrestling scene and a short stint in NXT, Owens burst onto the main WWE roster in May 2015 and was immediately thrust into a rivalry with the organization’s longtime flag-bearer John Cena. The pair traded wins over a series of engaging clashes, while trading barbs on the televised broadcasts in between. Owens hears from the fans of his opponents like Cena and current WWE champion Dean Ambrose not only in the arenas across the country, but also in his @FightOwensFight Twitter mentions.
“For every intelligent comment, there’s five mind-numbing, head-shaking tweets,” Owens said.
As for his own tweets, he said it’s not his intention to get under people’s skin.
“I’m just honest,” Owens said. “If I write something on Twitter, it’s not because somebody told me to tweet that. It’s how I feel.”
And during a break from shaking his head at his mentions, Owens found a way to use social media for unquestionable good.
After seeing the devastation from the Fort McMurray wildfires in his native Canada two months ago, Owens teamed with fellow Canadian WWE wrestler Tyler Breeze to launch a GoFundMe campaign with donations going to the Canadian Red Cross.
The initial goal was $30,000.
“It got so big so quick that we beat that in three days,” Owens said.
They offered video messages to fans that matched the wrestlers’ individual $100 donations and Owens and Breeze pledged to follow the Twitter account associated with all smaller donations. More than 2,300 people combined to raise more than twice their initial goal.
“So many people donated, we’re still catching up,” Owens said. “The response was that incredible.”
And if that’s not enough to soften your opinion of one of WWE’s premier antagonists, consider this. Fourteen months after his months-long conflict with Cena, Owens now has some positive things to say about the 15-time world champion, reality television star and host of Wednesday’s ESPY broadcast on ABC.
“Wrestling John Cena was a pretty incredible experience,” Owens said one day after Cena brought a pediatric cancer survivor to the ring following the July 4 RAW broadcast and encouraged that night’s crowd in Columbus, Ohio, to shower the young fan with a reaction befitting a WWE superstar.
“I’ve grown to become a huge John Cena fan, if not the wrestler, then certainly the man.”
Staff writer Steve Feitl: [email protected]
@SteveFeitl
(Photo: Courtesy of WWE)