Kevin Owens, Friendship, and Addiction

A look back as we approach Bash in Berlin

A consistent theme in Kevin’s career has been addiction. Even as recently as his title run with Sami he was portrayed as addicted to violence, though it was played for comedy at that time. But it’s not usually funny—or at least, the humor is extremely dark. Because the other side of Kevin’s addiction to violence is an addiction to friendship. Over and over again through his career, he snaps and turns on friends the second he realizes he depends on them, quickly redefining that friendship as a crutch or an addiction that must be broken. And in wrestling, the breaking of the addiction to friendship is always extremely literal.

In 2009, he pulled off the first and possibly most spectacular of these ego-shattering moments. Faced with the (kayfabe) possibility of having to retire, he decided instead that what he needed to do was instead turn on his tag team partner, El Generico, and take a chair to his head. In his promo right after the attack, he explicitly explains his actions in terms straight from AA, referring to the “moment of clarity” where he realized that his dependency on his friend was making him weak. From Fight Forever (which is, by the way, on track to hit the presses this fall!):

Each of Kevin’s betrayals since have echoed the terms of the first one, referencing dependence and addiction. It’s the eternal whiplash of Kevin’s career: the tension between the strength of human connections and the weakness of dependence. As we head toward the Bash in Berlin, that karmic rubber band is getting pulled tighter than it has in years. Kevin is struggling with self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy, the same as in 2009. Will be he be able to summon the ambition he needs to challenge for Cody’s title without finding the weight of friendship unbearable? It’s one of the meatiest angles he’s had for his character in quite a while, and while the title is on the line in Berlin, there’s a lot more than the title at stake.