It was announced on Monday that Kevin Owens signed a new five-year deal with WWE. Intending to finish his career with the WWE, he spent years on the indie scene before getting his chance to shine in NXT and eventually WWE where he's become one of the promotions most hated heels. For Owens, the chance to secure his future makes a lot of sense. For WWE, it was smart to lock up one of their most consistent stars.
A five-year deal is actually quite rare in WWE. Gone are the days where Vince McMahon would sign performers to a long-term deal and today most superstars are shorter-term contracts with two and three-year terms the norm. So, what makes Owens so special? That's a good question and one we intend to examine further.
In an attempt to figure out what made WWE decide this was the way to go, we're looking at the reasons WWE might have decided to go long-term on Kevin Owens.
A True Old School Heel
There are few wrestlers who bring the old school heel character to life like Kevin Owens does. He constantly smack-talks his opponents, he's always taking cheap shots and short-cuts and he's constantly whining his way into and out of situations. The best part is, the fans completely respect and dig his ability to do so in an entertaining way. A perfect example was the most recent episode of Raw where he came out to whine his way into the Money in the Bank Ladder Match claiming Braun Strowman didn't deserve anything and should "go sit in the corner in time out and think about how bad a monster he's been. Bad monster!"
This is a guy you love to hate and WWE has so few of these kinds of character you can count them on one hand. He's constantly in character and he's got you guessing with every tweet and every comment, which in the end, is great publicity for WWE.
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Consistently Good In The Ring
What might be even better than Owens ability to whine his way through a profitable WWE career, he can back it up in the ring and that makes him uniquely special. Most talents have one or the other in that they can talk or they can wrestle, but rarely do both. An argument can be made that it's hard to tell what Owens is better at. He's such a good wrestler and such a good talker, he's one of a kind.
Look no further than his first big match in WWE when he not only came out and challenged John Cena, he beat him to make an impact immediately. Quietly, Owens puts on some of the best matches in the company. He's had classics with Cena, Sami Zayn, Shane McMahon, AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura and if you put him in the ring with anyone, he'll make them look good while getting himself over.
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An Indie Star
One of the things that happen when you create a star like WWE does, is that you have to be cognizant of what becomes of these stars after you finish with them in WWE. With a guy like Owens, it's even more difficult to see him walk away because he made a name for himself on the independent scene. Should he leave WWE, he'd be a huge star making big money somewhere else. He'd be bigger than Cody Rhodes, and a top star in any promotion he went to.
WWE's desire to keep him inside the company may be as much about not letting him go. With the popularity of promotions like ROH, New Japan, and others growing, allowing them to add a star like Owens would be dangerous.
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Can Be Booked In Any Way
Finally, WWE knows its rare to employ a WWE Superstar you can book in any way, meaning, whether he wins, loses, plays a heel or babyface, takes on the boss or a newcomer, Owens will come out fine and wins and losses don't really hurt him.
Owens is good enough and smart enough that he'll be taken seriously in every match. A perfect example was his match on Monday against Strowman. Everyone knew he'd lose to the Monster Among Men, but everyone wanted to see how. When he took it to Strowman in a way no competitor had in some time, no one was surprised. It's all believable when you're dealing with Kevin Owens and if you're WWE, you don't give that up easily.