Newly signed WWE star and NXT Heavyweight Champion Kevin Owens was a recent guest on Talk is Jericho, and one point of discussion was Owens’ strong mic work. While it may not be new to some how good of a talker Owens is, he did elaborate on how he has got so good at it when quizzed by Jericho:
“I think I was always pretty good with words. Even when I was a kid at school, for example, I remember even in writing… we would write stories for whatever, like essays and stuff like that, and I think I always had a pretty good way with words. I think that also went with the way I spoke, so I think I was always good at speaking in general. But I don’t know exactly when I found my voice as far as promos are concerned.
“I remember one incident I met Steve Austin at an airport in 2005. I talked about this on his podcast and I was just a big Steve Austin fan. At that point — I know it’s very cliche to say — probably the biggest Steve Austin fan on the planet. I was on my way to a show with Sami Zayn in California, PWG once again, and we were on a layover in Texas and he happened to be on our flight. I was like ‘we have to go talk to him. We have to.’ So I went up to him and we talked a bit. He was very nice. Right before he headed off, right before he boarded the flight — cause, you know, he was on first class, so he got the priority boarding — I just asked ‘do you have any advice at all, just anything?’ And he said ‘just run your mouth. Just never stop running your mouth. Just learn how to talk.’ And I took that to heart from that moment on. (Run your mouth) on camera, in the ring, just talk. He actually said ‘that plancha shit will kill you,’ which I thought was really funny. Anyway so I took the ‘just never stop talking, run your mouth’ very much to heart, even that very weekend at the PWG show, I started implementing just talking more and being more vocal. I think that’s when it all started but as far as good promos, I really can’t pinpoint when it all happened.
“What you said earlier about me being genuine, I think that’s a big part of my appeal. That’s really what I try to be. I just try to be genuine and I don’t… you know, like I’ll never try to put on a voice and try to sound intimidating or scary because I don’t think that would work for me. Some guys pull it off really well but nobody, like none of the guys that ever captured my imagination or attention were ever like that. The guys that always captured my attention on promos were the guys that sounded genuine.”
