During an appearance on The Jake Asman Show, Kevin Owens commented on the end of his Royal Rumble Last Man Standing match against Roman Reigns. During the match, Owens handcuffed Reigns to the bottom of a scaffold and Reigns couldn’t stand up. However, Reigns knocked the referee down before the 10-count could be completed. Reigns then hit a low blow on Owens and Paul Heyman came to uncuff Reigns. Another referee started counting but Heyman had trouble uncuffing Reigns. The referee stopped counting and Heyman eventually freed Reigns.
Owens commented on the matter in character:
“I’m still recovery from the Royal Rumble. It was a pretty rough night for me. I was thrown off a 12-foot platform onto a bunch of tables, I got hit by a golf cart, I jumped off a forklift that was about 10 feet in the air, I burned my arm on a light that was part of our setup, and to top it all off, I didn’t win because I think a referee got paid off or something. A lot to recover from. I’ve never been cheated by a referee that way before. I used to play hockey in Canada as a kid so you would think it would happen before,” he said.
“I had a few options on how to approach it. I could try to knock him out, but he’s a tough guy. I figured I could go after his legs so he couldn’t stand up, but it wasn’t working that well. He went a different route and tried to throw me off high things and hit me with vehicles. Different strategies. Towards the end, I turned his own trick on him. He brought handcuffs, I handcuffed him to something and I thought I had him, I really did have him. Some screw-ups from the referees and here I am, sitting in my car without the Universal Championship. It goes to show, no matter how prepared you are for a match in WWE, you never know how it’s going to go.”
(quotes courtesy of Fightful.com)
