ESPN personality’s Tweet making fun of Kevin Owens’ son’s reaction to his title win elicits a strong response from fans

Earlier today, we shared the story of Owen Steen, eight year old son of new WWE Universal champion Kevin Owens, and his reaction to his father’s big night on Raw this past Monday (Aug. 29).

Lots of wrestling and real sports outlets covered it, and a Tweet from USA Today’s “For the Win” blog promoting their coverage caught the eye of ESPN NBA analyst Amin Elhassan. Elhassan then made the wholly original and insightful allegation that pro wrestling isn’t “real”:

While the Sportscenter regular probably wasn’t going for anything more than the usual trolling guys like Colin Cowherd and Doug Gottlieb occassionally aim at wrestling fans, his has the extra douche-y element of making fun of a child being excited for his father’s accomplishment (scripted or no).

This has, of course, prompted a ton of responses from fans defending wrestling, Owens and Owen, or just pointing out what a crappy thing it is to do to go out of your way to rain on someone else’s parade:

Along with defenses from “real” sports fans and others who like riling up people.

Several wrestlers and other insiders have responded (not quite to Conor McGregor levels), but the best one comes from Cody Rhodes:

No one likes it when the stuff they like is ridiculed, and it is particularly low to use a child to do so (a lot of replies have mentioned Owen being autistic, which is something I’ve heard as well, but I couldn’t find anywhere where KO or his wife have spoken on record about their son being on the spectrum - and Elhassan says knowing that wouldn’t change his stance, anyway - so that’s really none of our business as fans).

But you’re not going to change anyone’s mind, and attention is exactly what someone wants when they fire off a Tweet like Elhassan’s.

Support wrestlers, and wrestling, and fellow fans.

Don’t feed the trolls.