Kevin Owens says you're 'delusional' if you think losing to John Cena hurt him

The subject of wins and losses in pro wrestling, especially as it pertains to rising up the card in WWE, are always a popular discussion for fans.

For the last couple of years, a focus of those discussions has been on John Cena. With The Face Who Runs The Place transitioning out of being a full-time presence in the WWE title picture, he's worked with rising stars like Bray Wyatt, Rusev and Kevin Owens. Each of those men defeated Cena, one way or another, before eventually losing the larger feud to the 15-time world champ.

The phenomena gave berth to a sub-meme for CENAWINSLOL. It prompted our own resident numbers guy Cain A. Knight to dig into the data. And it caused a lot of hand wringing from different parts of the internet wrestling community (IWC) about how Wyatt, Rusev and Owens were damaged by their losses to Cena.

One person who disagrees with that assessment is the man who pinned the then-United States champion clean at Elimination Chamber. In an interview with Canada's Slam! Sports ahead of his return to Montreal, KO weighed in:

It definitely helped me working with Cena and anybody who thinks the opposite is delusional. When you worked with him on Raw and on PPV, how this can be bad? Whatever people said about me losing two matches out of three, at the end of the year, fans will remember the quality of the matches and how great these matches were way more than who won and who lost.

It's always a little difficult to tell with Owens how much is a shoot from the lifelong wrestling fan and how much is kayfabe from one of the best heels in the business, and I think his use of the word "delusional" is at least partially the latter.

I'd personally argue that damage done to his character over the Summer was a combination of factors. If he wasn't losing a feud in NXT to Finn Bálor at the same time he was dropping matches to Cena, and if he didn't drift somewhat aimlessly for a few weeks on Raw after tapping at Battleground, we might not focus so much on his losses to an all-time great.

Owens seems to be rebounding nicely heading into his showdown with Ryback for the Intercontinental title in Houston tomorrow.

Do you still believe his losses to John Cena hurt Kevin Owens, Cagesiders?