Jacques Rougeau had what is considered to have been quite the historic run in WWE as The Mountie and as part of the hugely successful tag team, The Quebecers (during its first run with his brother Raymond and second run with PCO). Rougeau is also known for training wrestlers in Quebec and WWE Superstar, Kevin Owens was one of his students. He now reveals that Owens had quite the attitude issues.
In the past, Rougeau actually stated that Owens, in so many ways, reminds him of himself – how they had similar attitudes – but the issues stemmed specifically from Owens’ very own arrogance according to Rougeau. It was while speaking to It’s My Wrestling Podcast that he made the following statement on his beef with Owens:
“He was my student for five years. I’m the one who taught him how to wrestle. I knew when I was teaching him in my school, he was always ahead of the other kids. And he always wanted to go fast. I was saying hey, we’re a group, you’re not alone here the other guys paid too. So just take your time. Then after five years, he couldn’t take it anymore. He just took off and did independent things.
He was arrogant. I was when I was young. I saw him in me. It didn’t bother me that because he was a likeable guy. You know, when you put him back in his place, he’d come and give you a hug. I wanted him to understand that he went out of bounds a little bit then I bring him back in line and then we had a great relationship till the day left. I always liked the guy. He knew how to be liked by people.”
In the past, Owens himself has been quite critical of Rougeau as well. He has previously stated that Rougeau was too controlling and spoke of a possible WWE tryout in Montreal back in the day, where Rougeau wanted Owens to sign a contract where Rougeau would get 15% of his salary should he have been signed at that time by WWE.
Otherwise, he couldn’t do the tryout. Well, he didn’t end up doing that tryout, quite obviously, but the rest of his own WWE career is now the stuff of legend and he wound up finding his way there on his own. His sentiments were made during an interview with Title Match Wrestling a few years back (video below).
So the two have had quite the contentious relationship over the years for sure, which is unusual in pro wrestling. Usually, teacher/student relationships are far better than how this one turned out to be like. It’s sad, as both are legendary wrestlers who probably could have worked well together down the line had their relationship gone differently.
H/T Wrestling News