In a recent interview, former NXT Champion Adam Cole revealed that of the many wrestlers he’s worked with throughout his career, he credits current Monday Night Raw star Kevin Owens for helping him become a success years ago in the independent wrestling scene.
As seen in this one-minute clip from the WWE on BT Sport Twitter account that was posted on Wednesday, Owens jokingly looked back on how it “broke [his] heart” to see his longtime friend Owens appear at last year’s NXT TakeOver: WarGames pay-per-view. This event saw the former Universal Champion reveal himself as the surprise fourth member of Tommaso Ciampa’s team, leading the foursome to victory over Cole’s Undisputed Era faction. As Cole explained, this was the opposite of what he expected, which was for him and Owens to team up and fight for a common cause.
However, Cole quickly switched gears and offered an out-of-character explanation of how Owens played an important role in his development as a wrestler.
“I’ll briefly touch on this, but he played such a big part in me kind of taking off on the independents. Kevin was a guy that kind of took me under his wing in [Pro Wrestling Guerilla], which later on helped me out in Ring of Honor. He was a big, big aspect to me kind of understanding that independent — or just, in general — that main event style, and how to kind of perform, and what to do, and what to say.”
Cole then said that he believes Owens won’t take credit for being such a great help but reiterated that he will always consider him as a good friend in real life and one of the main reasons why he became a top indie star before heading to WWE.
At this point, it’s not clear if or when Cole and Owens will cross paths once again in the coming months. On Wednesday’s pre-taped episode of NXT , which featured the second part of the Great American Bash event, Cole lost his NXT Championship to Keith Lee, marking the end of a title reign that lasted more than a year, as noted by Ringside News .
There have been no clear signs that this title loss could lead to a call-up to the main roster, but the outlet speculated that Triple H’s recent comments about Cole “just getting started” may or may not be a sign of an imminent move to Monday Night Raw or Friday Night SmackDown .