Adam Cole had a lot of experience in the independent circuit prior to signing with WWE. He found great success in ROH and NJPW.
Adam Cole spoke to BT Sport, where he talked about Kevin Owens. He was joking about them being friends at the time when Owens came out during NXT TakeOver: WarGames and attacked him. The former NXT Champion then talked seriously about everything Owens did to help Cole succeed in the independent scene.
“Kevin Owens is another guy — I’ll briefly touch on this, but he played a big part of me sort of taking off on the independents. Kevin is a guy who took me under his wing in PWG which later helped me out in Ring Of Honor. He was a big aspect of me understanding that independent, or just in general, that main event style and kinda how to perform and what to say. He’ll never take credit for it because that’s just the way that he is, but I always credit him as someone who really did help me and he is a great friend — except for that WarGames thing.”
Perhaps Kevin Owens did not realize how much he helped shape Cole’s career, but Cole is certainly aware of it. Adam Cole vs Kevin Owens is certainly a match fans would love to see in the future.
"He played such a big part in me taking off on the independents, he took me under his wing in PWG."@AdamColePro and @FightOwensFight have a lot of history together but have only crossed paths once in WWE 👀
Something needs to be done about this 😏 pic.twitter.com/03xBQVpaJg
— WWE on TNT Sports (@wweontnt) July 8, 2020