WWE, which was reluctant on giving its approval to talents who were willing to use Steve Austin's finishing move Stunner, relaxed its stance this year by letting Kevin Owens adopt the popular finisher in the sports entertainment.
Kevin Owens, in Corey Graves' After The Bell podcast, has now revealed that he had sought permission from Steve Austin himself in 2016, but WWE gave nod to use it only in 2019.
Recalling his interaction with the Rattlesnake, Kevin Owens has said that people were using Stunner as finishing move, "here and there." So, he thought it can be used by him as his finishing move the pop-up powerbomb was being adopted by many in one or the other way. The Prizefighter claims that he was getting annoyed to see it which forced him to search for other moves.
"At the time, I was a heel or antagonist or however you want to put it... I remember thinking, if I were to start doing the Stunner, some people might love it and some people might really hate it, but nobody would be indifferent to it," he adds.
Owens says that he met Steve Austin to seek his permission and the latter was happy that the former was seeking his approval. "You know, me giving him the respect of it but more than anything, he was happy that someone asked him because he's like, 'You want to use it as a finisher ?' I'm like, 'Yes'. He's like, 'God, it's about time; I can't believe nobody's tried this yet. I can't believe no one had come and asked about using the stunner as a finisher. It's a great finish, like, why not?' He then went on and said some people use it and it means nothing," he continues.
However, Steve Owens' wish met with opposition from other quarters. "So I wasn't able to start using it at that point, even though I stuck it in one of my matches with Roman, which ended up leading to a funny exchange between me and Steve on his podcast later on where he tried how to use the stunner properly because I couldn't beat Roman with it that night," The Prizefighter further adds.
The WWE star concludes, "Anyway, I've had Steve's blessing to use it for a long time and I was just waiting for the right time. This year felt like that was it, so that's what I've been going with. Some people love it, some people really hate it. But again, I'm fine with that. I love doing it."
