Kevin Owens cites Rebel as inspiration, reveals when he found out he had been cleared to wrestle

Kevin Owens, who returned to the ring at SummerSlam tonight for the first time after suffering a neck injury that almost ended his career over a year ago, cited AEW wrestler Rebel (real name Tanea Brooks), who is suffering from terminal ALS, as an inspiration to him as he made a lengthy recovery to come back to WWE.

After being inserted into a four-way match to determine a new #1 contender to face C.M. Punk that also featured Finn Balor, Sami Zayn, and Gunther by Smackdown GM Nick Aldis, Owens pinned Zayn to become the new #1 contender to the WWE Undisputed Championship.

“There’s somebody called Tanea Brooks, who’s known to wrestling fans as Rebel,” said Steen while appearing on the WWE SummerSlam post-show panel on ESPN Unlimited. “She has not wrestled here, but some things are bigger than wrestling. She’s currently battling ALS, and the way she’s doing it is so incredible. I looked at her and what she was going through, and the way she powered through it, and it was truly inspirational.”

Rebel was diagnosed with ALS earlier this year and AEW has announced they are running a Rebel Heart themed Dynamite to raise money for ALS in September.

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Owens also said he only recently learned he was going to be able to return after getting cleared by doctors. “There was a moment I thought it wasn’t gonna happen, and I definitely did not make peace with it, said Owens. “I was not ready. Getting this taken away from you when you’re not ready is hard. But I had such a great group of people around me to support me through it through it: my wife, my kids, my friends, the WWE medical staff, even you (Big E).”

Owens said that he talked to Big E frequently before getting cleared. “I would talk to you a lot, but I was never okay with it,” said Owens. “Up to a month ago, I was like, ‘This may be it.’ We kept doing scans, it kept not showing what we were hoping for as far as the healing process from the surgery. Then I was like, ‘Well maybe it’s not gonna happen.’ Then a couple of weeks ago they said, ‘We finally saw what we needed to see. You can get back in the ring.’  From there here I am.”