Kevin Owens calls Triple H 'a machine' who is involved with every aspect of WWE NXT

Alex Obert's Journey of a Frontman has a great interview up with WWE NXT Superstar Kevin Owens.  It's recent, and gives the man formerly known as Kevin Steen on the indies a chance to reflect on his time with WWE and things that have gone down since he debuted on television at Takeover: R Evolution in December.

The whole thing is pretty much cut & paste worthy, so head on over and give it a read.  Here's some particular highlights that jumped out at me, on which I'd love to read your thoughts.

Add KO to the list of CJ Parker super-fans down in Orlando:

CJ Parker's probably the best guy we have here that hasn't been prominently featured on NXT, for whatever reason. He's one of those kinds of people that no matter where they are or what they're doing, they're gonna find a way to make it work and shine. Eventually he'll have his time. Our match was ten minutes or so and he made the best of it. He broke my nose two minutes in. A lot of people had a lot of things to say about him breaking my nose, but in a way, he made a huge statement. I think CJ Parker is a big part of the future. He's as good as anybody I've ever been in the ring with, in all honesty.

I feel like CJ Parker and I could do a lot of good things together if we get to wrestle each other again.

He acknowledges the influence of Sami Zayn, Cesaro, Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins and Adrian Neville on his decision to come to WWE, but the match that most inspired him to make the leap featured someone from a very different background than the independent scene he knows most of those guys from:

It's actually kind of forgotten about because a lot of people talk about the Cesaro matches, which were all amazing, but it was really eye-opening for me to see Jack Swagger and Sami Zayn have a match like that. It made me realize if those guys, who are two very different people from very different backgrounds, managed to make magic like that, I could do that too and I could do it with a whole bunch of new characters and people.

On the "intimate setting" at Full Sail Live, where NXT tapes:

I've never been in an environment like that with the titantron and the ramp and the lights and all the equipment. When I was walking out there, there might have been seven hundred people in the place, but to me, it might as well have been seventeen thousand. It felt to me like I was in any arena anywhere that the WWE puts on a show.

The production isn't the only thing about NXT preparing him for the next level.  Even for a gifted talker like Owens, he's learning a tone about that side of the business:

It's all intricate stuff it's stuff that I've never done. Ring of Honor had TV, but nothing like this. It was never that intricate and never on a level like this. I've never done this stuff, so I'm really fortunate to have that many people who are that creative and know exactly what they are doing behind me for that. I enjoyed every aspect of it. It seems like it would be tedious, but it's exactly what I've always wanted to do.

You mentioned presentation skills or promo class or whatever you wanna call it with Dusty Rhodes, that's probably my favorite thing about the WWE Performance Center. Once a week, I get to sit in with Dusty Rhodes. He's hilarious and intelligent and he cares about everybody here. That's just really nice to see because he doesn't have to care about everyone here. He could just care about the top few guys that are clearly featured, but he doesn't, he cares about everybody from Sami Zayn, who has been here forever, to Noah, who just started a couple months ago and is working to find himself and his voice. Dusty spends as much time with them as he does with us and that's really incredible. The Performance Center is a pretty incredible place to be.

And one of the guys he's most excited to learn from is Triple H.  Owens spoke to that, and also provides some details into how involved the Senior Vice President and on-screen main roster performer is in WWE Developmental:

All I can say is that Triple H is literally the most dedicated man in sports entertainment, nobody works as hard as he does. I only see glimpses of it when he's at the NXT tapings and the specials, but he's always available for ideas. We were talking about what I was gonna do and how I was gonna be presented, he was very hands-on. It's not just me, he's got his finger on the pulse of everything we do here. And we do a lot of stuff, there's seventy people here and he keeps track of everyone. I don't know when he sleeps, I don't know when he works out, but he's alive and he's in great shape. From what I can tell, he's a machine. His dedication is really something to behold. I'm lucky to have somebody like him willing to work with me...

Vince McMahon might argue with the "nobody works as hard" claim, and this will probably be used as grist from the rumor mill on a McMahon/Haitch split when it comes to talent and creative direction.

But you can tell from this interview, and the publicity Finn Bálor has done recently, that The Game is surrounding himself with guys who see the work he's doing at the Performance Center as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and who aren't afraid to tell that to world.

The Future may indeed be now.