WWE Hot Take of the Week: Kevin Owens Quitting Raw Leads to Disappointing Payoff

Welcome to another Hot Take, where the frustrating things going on in WWE are called out and admonished.

Sadly, the target this week is how WWE botched the story of Kevin Owens quitting Raw, dooming it from the start and following it up with an even bigger fumble.

Normally, when someone quits WWE in the middle of an episode, it should be the biggest story of the week—particularly when that person is as popular as Owens. He's a former universal champion, among many other accolades. It should be a big deal when he leaves.

However, the angle that saw Owens take off after losing his match against Seth Rollins didn't land as strong as it should have, coming off like it was no more important than anything else that happened on the show. It was just another thing between two other segments.

By the end of the night, it had already been overshadowed by Braun Strowman's heel turn, so it didn't even have a few hours of being the dominant talking point, let alone generate significant buzz over the next few days.

The WWE Universe should have been speculating about what this could mean. WWE should have played into the talk around the water cooler by putting out stories that there were whispers of what Owens would do next.

Paige could have tweeted that if Owens were interested in joining the SmackDown Live roster, she would like to have a meeting with him to chat about a contract. William Regal could have expressed interest in bringing Owens back to NXT.

Some rumors could have been floated to websites to stir up discussion that Owens was gone for good. Anything could have happened, but it didn't.

Instead, the days went by and everybody focused on All In rather than WWE, leaving Raw to be the next chance for the story to take an interesting turn.

The angle got off to a rocky start, but there was still some potential to build curiosity over how Owens would be brought back into the mix. After all, he had been advertised for Super Show-Down, so would WWE wait until closer to that event to pull the trigger, or would he make his presence known at Hell in a Cell?

Naturally, WWE's next move was to stop everything dead in its tracks and kill the angle by having Owens pop up on Monday's episode of Raw. No more speculation. Nothing to look forward to.

Why did Owens quit? It's a moot point because he didn't quit—he didn't even miss a single show.

Storylines wherein someone quits work best when the person stays gone for a long enough time to give the angle credibility. If it's too short of a time frame, it hurts future storylines of firings, suspensions and exits because fans just assume the Superstar will be back in no time.

For instance, when John Cena was "fired" by Wade Barrett in November 2010, he also appeared on the next week's Raw. He was reinstated on the roster quick enough to wrestle at the next event, TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs, in December.

Since there wasn't a single week to let his departure sink in, it meant nothing. But at least his return was to carry on a feud with a hot heel at the time.

Owens, on the other hand, didn't even get that type of a comeback.

Instead, he randomly interrupted a weak meditation segment with Jinder Mahal to attack Bobby Lashley for what will most likely amount to nothing other than a statement—ignoring how an even bigger statement of frustration would be to quit and stay away.

Lashley has exhibited no personality since returning to WWE and would have been a better candidate to turn heel than Strowman. It would inject a kind of interest in him that his current gimmick of being slightly annoyed at heels does not.

With the phrase "my man" and a big smile on his face being the best Lashley has to offer, what is there to look forward to in a feud between the two? Owens destroying him on the mic and then eating a loss at Hell in a Cell? Pass.

We'll have to see the two fight throughout September as WWE tries—if you can call it trying—to build anticipation for October 6's Super Show-Down, where Lashley will have Cena as his tag team partner while Owens pairs up with Elias. That would be inconsequential on a regular episode of Raw, let alone at what is supposed to be a special event.

Credit: WWE.com

It's all so uninspiring, which is a shame, as Owens has proved himself to be one of the most charismatic performers the company has had in a long while, pulling off the rare combination of being a serious prizefighter and a comedic coward.

He deserves better than this—as does the WWE Universe tuning in to the show.

Any other television program that would tease a big twist in the narrative, only to undercut it with a lame turn of events the very next week, would see viewers lose faith in the writers.

With WWE, it seems there are always repetitive second chances, but those wanting more out of this Owens angle probably should have learned a long time ago not to set their expectations so high.

After all, just look at what WWE did with the story of Dolph Ziggler winning and immediately relinquishing the United States Championship, which had the payoff of him randomly appearing in the Royal Rumble, quickly being eliminated and going back to the same shtick he had done for months before taking time off.

It's good to be optimistic that things will work out, but based off the way this has gone, the more realistic prediction is that Owens will be fed to Roman Reigns at some point before having an even smaller role at WrestleMania than he did last year.

If that ends up being the case, we will be looking back and wondering whether there was any payoff to his trading to Raw during April's Superstar Shake-up but understanding fully why he felt the need to quit.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.