CM Punk and Kevin Owens have a history that goes way beyond their current WWE feud, and one of the biggest stories from their past has been floating around wrestling circles for years. The basic version was that the two nearly came to blows backstage in Ring of Honor. Owens later explained that’s not what happened.
In a July 2014 interview with Title Match Wrestling, Owens — then known as Kevin Steen — said the whole thing started over his wrestling gear. He preferred working in a t-shirt because he felt more comfortable and more like himself, but at the time he had been asked to wrestle in just a singlet.
“I just felt like the singlet wasn’t me. Some people might disagree strongly, but that’s fine. I just find the t-shirt looks better.”
After a few months, Owens asked if he could go back to wrestling in the shirt. He said he wasn’t trying to hide anything or make a statement. He simply felt better in it.
“Can I just wrestle with the shirt on? I just feel more comfortable. I feel like I can be myself. When I don’t have the shirt, I just feel like I’m this wrestler dude.”
According to Owens, Punk eventually heard about the situation and made a crack about him wrestling in the shirt before one of his matches. Owens didn’t take it as an attack at the time.
“Punk just made a crack about me wrestling in the shirt, but whatever. I didn’t care. I think Punk and I were on good terms. It was fine. To me, I took it as a joke. I don’t think he was trying to humiliate me.”
The problem came after the match. Owens said he came through the curtain exhausted, saw Punk standing there and decided to joke back by asking if he was happy now.
“I was blown up. I figured I’ll joke with him. I’ll joke back. And I said, ‘Are you happy now?’”
Punk didn’t hear it as a joke. Owens said Punk got angry, yelled at him and accused him of being disrespectful. Even years later, Owens admitted he could understand how his tone may have come across the wrong way because he was exhausted.
“He got very upset. He yelled at me and said I was disrespectful and all this stuff. For what it’s worth, if I had been in his position, maybe I would have thought the same.”
That exchange happened in front of other wrestlers, which is a big reason the story spread so quickly. By the next day, Owens said the online version had already turned into something much more dramatic than what actually went down.
“I ended up just saying, ‘Okay, I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry.’ That was it. It was no big deal. But the next day online it was being reported we almost came to blows, which is not true.”
Owens also made it clear that he didn’t carry the incident around as some massive grudge. By the time of that 2014 interview, he said he knew Punk much better and viewed the situation as ancient history.
“Now I know Punk a lot better, and I think he knows me a lot better too. Now it’s just like a far thing. It’s like it never happened, really.”
That old story has suddenly become relevant again because Punk and Owens are now leaning hard into their real history on WWE television. Their SmackDown confrontation felt personal, and Owens has already referenced being humiliated by Punk in front of a locker room years ago.
The actual ROH incident, according to Owens, was much simpler: Punk made a joke, Owens tried to joke back, Punk took it as disrespect, words were exchanged, Owens apologized and that was it. No fight. No near brawl. Just a backstage argument that became a much bigger story once it hit the internet. Now WWE has two veterans with decades of history finally working against each other, and they don’t have to invent much to make it feel real.
How much of Punk and Owens’ real history do you think WWE should bring into this feud? Let us know in the comments.
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