Kevin Owens recently shared his thoughts on Sami Zayn winning the WWE Championship.
Sami Zayn surprised everyone when he became the Undisputed WWE Champion for the first time at the WWE Night of Champions 2026. One of the people who were happy about Zayn’s victory was his real-life friend Kevin Owens.
Owens and Zayn have known each other for a very long time, and The Prizefighter was very happy that his friend finally reached his goal. But since this is wrestling, it didn’t take long for Zayn to turn on Owens as seen on WWE SmackDown a few weeks ago.
Kevin Owens Talks About Sami Zayn’s WWE Championship Win
While speaking with the Toronto Sun recently, Kevin Owens opened up about Sami Zayn’s title win. Owens explained how both of their lives have been linked for over twenty years.
“He and I have had such a crazy history together but really the last 23, 24 years of our careers have been linked to one another, for better, for worse, you know? We went everywhere together; people brought us together everywhere, and then he went to WWE, I followed suit… I got to the main roster, he followed suit really soon after and we’ve constantly been neck and neck. We’ve been partners, we’ve been enemies. We’ve been partners, we’ve been enemies.”
Later, Owens said they are more like brothers than just friends because they spent so much time together going from show to show. Despite being rivals on television, Owens says their bond stays the same.
”But through it all, the one thing that remains constant is that we really are more like brothers than friends and I’ve said this so many times: You don’t get to choose your family. You’re born into a family and this is the family you have. Me and Sami didn’t have a choice. It’s not like we met and we’re like, oh man — we’re not the same. We’re very different people. But we got booked together everywhere. We had to spend 10, 12 hours in a car together driving to shows. 10, 12 hours back. We struggled together; we saw each other succeed. We’ve been through it all together and there was no other choice but to create this bond that now we have and no matter if we’re trying to kill each other or trying to win Tag Team Titles together, it’s always gonna be there. So for him to win that title after working so hard for it for so long, and you know, there were times where we didn’t think it would happen for him, and to see him actually get to do it was so special?”
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When Sami Zayn won the title off Cody Rhodes, Owens wasn’t there to watch it live. He did catch up with Zayn later on Raw, though.
“The only thing is I wish I could have been there in person which obviously I wasn’t. But I made sure a few days later, I went to Raw just to be able to see him in person with the title, and yeah, it was very special to see somebody that you shared so much with on the road and throughout your whole career, and then beyond that. We both saw each other get married, have kids. We’ve been through our life together at this point. So to see him achieve the biggest dream he ever had, in wrestling, was incredible.” (H/T Fightful)
Sami Zayn lost the title to CM Punk in Chicago on the July 6 edition of Monday Night Raw. After Owens became the number one contender to Punk’s title, he challenged for the belt in an episode of SmackDown in Toronto, where Zayn ended up costing him the bout. As of right now, both of these stars are involved in the WWE Title picture.
Do you think Sami Zayn will become the WWE Champion again?
For more on Kevin Owens and pro wrestling (WWE, AEW, etc.), you can check out this page. If you’re new to watching wrestling, check out our WWE streaming guide, which is updated for 2026.
Main image credit: WWE
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