John Cena vs. Kevin Owens: WWE Career of Owens Hinges on US Title Win

For the last several weeks, John Cena and Kevin Owens have been embroiled in one of the best feuds currently playing out on WWE programming.

Audiences have been given the perfect introduction to the man who has run roughshod through NXT. He's been positioned as a bitter, violent thug who does exactly what he says he's going to do. Furthermore, Cena has been the perfect foil for Owens as the veteran clinging onto his spot.

Unfortunately, that was the easy part. Feuds that pit an up-and-comer against Cena are always great for the first few weeks. Then, the longer they drag on, the more they tend to morph into the all-too-familiar sight of young talent being sacrificed to the man who's sat at the top of the ladder for more than a decade.

Now is the time that we find out whether Owens is the next in a long line or the man who takes a chunk out of Cena that can't simply be laughed off on Raw the next night.

Credit: WWE.com

Anything less than a convincing win to cap off this feud won't be enough to see Owens through. He needs to claim the United States Championship for his own, ideally putting Cena on the shelf for a good while in the process.

From his debut to his victory at Elimination Chamber to when he powerbombed MGK last week, Owens has been a break from the norm. WWE programming can become formulaic at times, but Owens tends to cut through that.

However, nothing could be more formulaic than him claiming an early win against Cena, only for it to be erased by back-to-back losses. That's the normal outcome for the leader of the Cenation, and too many times, such a program has done nothing for the talent in question—much less for the fans who've seen it all before.

With that said, Owens' success has greater stakes attached to it than Bray Wyatt or Rusev's success did before he came along. While those two performed in NXT, they were nowhere near as representative of the brand as Owens is.

Credit: WWE.com

If Owens can't best Cena for the United States Championship at Battleground, WWE is putting a ceiling on how high up the card an NXT graduate can travel—even if they join the main roster as the NXT champion.

Depending on how NXT is to be presented alongside WWE, that might not be a bad thing. However, if the plan is to tour NXT as a separate entity, it sets the wrong precedent. Fans love to organize the roster in order of potency, and Owens coming up short against Cena effectively drops the entire NXT roster down a notch.

It's no exaggeration to say that Owens vs. Cena is the most important feud in WWE at the moment. Depending on who wins, we'll know whether the company is focused on the future or on the past.