WWE SmackDown: Kevin Owens Is The Perfect First WWE Championship Feud For Kofi

The April 30 edition of WWE SmackDown saw the fallout of Kevin Owens’ calculated attack on WWE Champion Kofi Kingston the previous week that included the inevitable championship match being made official.

Last night’s WWE SmackDown focused heavily on the WWE Championship picture between Kofi Kingston and Kevin Owens with the show starting and ending with those two after Owens turned on The New Day just one week prior all part of a ruse to announce his true intentions.

Kingston took part in an interview at the start of the show last night that eventually led to talk about Owens.  Kofi said if KO wanted a WWE Championship opportunity, all he had to do was ask, but Kofi laid down the challenge for a one-on-one match at Money In The Bank for the WWE Championship.

Owens obliged before he started taking shots at Kofi for not being a true threat.

Fellow New Day member Xavier Woods wouldn’t take that lying down and he tried to jump Owens from behind, but Owens turned the tables quickly and laid out Woods with a superkick before Kofi chased Owens off to check on his New Day brother.  And to top things off, an episode of The Kevin Owens Show was scheduled for later in the night with Woods lined up to be the special guest.

However, his injury issues last night caused him not to be part of the show, and that’s just what Owens wanted in the long run.  He made fun of Woods and the rest of The New Day with action figures in the ring before Kofi had heard enough.  He rushed the ring to attack Owens and KO didn’t know what hit him.  Kingston threw Owens off of his game before he eventually backpedaled through the crowd to get away from Kingston.

Simply put, Owens is the perfect first WWE Championship feud for Kofi.  The writing was on the wall for this eventual feud and match as soon as Owens returned from injury prior to the Fastlane pay-per-view.  Keep in mind, he took Kofi’s spot in the WWE Championship match with The New Daniel Bryan at Fastlane.  And even though he said Kofi deserved to be in the match and he was operating as a babyface for a while, a tiger never loses his stripes.

And KO’s stripes include backstabbing, heelish tactics to get what he wants.  He has become one of the most underappreciated heels in the WWE in recent memory and no matter what program he ends up in, Owens makes the most out of it as a heel.  When looking at some of the other potential first feuds for Kofi as WWE Champion, this one just makes the most sense.

The seed between these two feuding was planted when Owens returned to take Kofi’s place at Fastlane.  And then there was the whole Owens becoming an honorary member of The New Day thing, which led to some entertaining TV for a couple of weeks.  It was a strategic plan by KO, however, especially knowing that Big E, the muscle of The New Day, is out with an injury.  It just makes sense to have this be Kofi’s first WWE Championship defense.

Roman Reigns just joined the blue brand roster, Randy Orton is in the Money in the Bank ladder match, Bryan is injured and just lost to Kofi, and several other top stars are in the Money in the Bank ladder match, so none of those would have made much storyline sense to challenge Kofi at Money In The Bank.  Owens is a fantastic heel that helps make every babyface he faces better, and the same can be said for Kingston thus far.

Not to mention, KO is always stellar in the ring and can help provide outstanding match after outstanding match.  This should be a great battle and over the next couple of weeks, the feud aspect should only improve as well.  It has been impressive already, but given the caliber of superstars involved, expecting more should be a realistic expectation by the WWE universe.

There are plenty of other matches and feuds Kofi can have in the future, but for right now, a feud with KO is the best way to occupy his time as the new WWE Champion.