Analyzing Kevin Owens’ First Year in WWE

May 18 marks one year since Kevin Owens made his debut on Monday Night Raw, we look back at his past twelve months.

Kevin Owens is coming up on 16 years in the professional wrestling business, but his last twelve months have probably been the best of his career. The man formerly known as Kevin Steen has quickly become one of the most important members of the WWE roster, and will go on to become a legend in the annals of WWE.

May 18, 2015, was a monumental day for Kevin Owens. Having spent the better part of a decade and a half travelling the world, honing his craft, he finally made his presence felt on the most watched weekly wrestling television show in the world. Not only did he make his debut, but he came in against arguably WWE’s best-known performer, John Cena.

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Cena had been on a mission to build up the WWE United States Championship to a title worth holding once again. He’d introduced the “United States Championship Open Challenge” and on that night, it was Kevin Owens who answered that challenge. At that point in time Owens was still the NXT Champion, and Cena seemed to keen to put Owens in his place, right down to telling him he’d offer him some “veteran advice”. Owens was far from happy with that, not least for the fact that Owens had been wrestling longer than Cena.

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Owens went on to win his first match against Cena, with a clean pinfall victory at Elimination Chamber. Cena would go on to get two wins against Owens, but the fact that Owens had been granted the opportunity to jump in right near the top of the card speaks volumes for how well thought of Owens is in WWE. Owens has spent the last year showing the world of WWE why he is one of the biggest assets the company currently has.

Owens would win the Intercontinental Championship from Ryback and make the title mean something again. Owens has taken the wrestling style made famous by many on the indy circuit, mixing brutal brawling with big high spots and more, and used that to make him stand out amongst a plethora of world class workers on the roster.

KO is unrivalled on the microphone, making his segments the most entertaining on television every week. Regularly using his words to get him over as one of the best heels in wrestling, Owens stands head and shoulders above anyone else on the WWE roster.  Some of his greatest work has come when he’s been sat at the announcers desk, running down Michael Cole and joining JBL with the bashing of Byron Saxton, whist using the opportunity to further get himself over and build his character.

Kevin Owens has had great matches with anyone he has stepped into the ring with in the last year. We should not have been surprised at that, though, having watched him for so many years tearing up rings round the world. He seems to be entrenched in the Intercontinental Championship picture, with the fatal four-way match against champion The Miz, Cesaro and Sami Zayn coming up this weekend at Extreme Rules.

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Speaking of Sami Zayn, he is the ultimate opponent for Owens and has brought the best out of Owens in 2016. Over the years Zayn and Owens have been friends, they have been enemies, and it’s as the greatest of rivals that they have both excelled in in the last few months. Owens has helped Zayn slot into the upper mid card of WWE with ease, whilst their matches have been some of the best in the company since the turn of the year.

In a world where many of his peers are copy and paste stars, Kevin Owens has taken the mould and well and truly broken it. He has proved in the last year that if you let a performer do what they are good at, then he will give it his all and make you mega bucks. He may not be your archetypal WWE Superstar, but Kevin Owens has proved he will be a worthy WWE Champion, when it is deemed his time to hold the biggest prize in the company.

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Over the last year, without a doubt, Kevin Owens is the MVP of WWE.