The post-match angle for this match saw Randy Orton make his return to WWE after being taken out by Kevin Owens with a Package Piledriver, setting up an eventual showdown at WrestleMania 41, but that never happened. Instead, two weeks before WrestleMania, Owens announced that he had to step away from wrestling in order to have neck surgery, something he had been putting off for some time, and he has not been back in the ring since.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that it would be amazing to see Owens back in a WWE ring in the near future, and if the neck surgery has put the rest of his career on a shortened timer then it would be great to see him do everything he wants to do in the business before he hangs his boots up. Having said that, I also don’t think I’m alone in saying that this match with Sami Zayn is the most fitting way Owens could end his career.

Owens and Zayn have basically been linked since the start of their careers. If you think of one, you automatically think of the other, it’s that simple. They have shared the ring hundreds and hundreds of times since they first crossed paths on the Quebec indie circuit in 2003, and while they might disagree with this sentiment if you told them this, Owens and Zayn are arguably the two best Canadian exports with no relation to the Hart family. To have their story, their journey as friends, foes, blood brothers, borderline life partners, to have that end against one another in the biggest possible venue in their home country, and for it to be one of the best matches of that particular year, it doesn’t really get any better than that.

The Rogers Centre, or the SkyDome, has hosted two WrestleManias, but this was a match that probably felt like the main event of a WrestleMania to Owens and Zayn. Them slamming each other into a barbed wire chair in the same building that The Ultimate Warrior won the WWE Championship from Hulk Hogan, the same building where Hulkamania ran wild once more against The Rock is the kind of stuff that puts a smile on your face because you know back in 2003, they never dreamed their story could reach this level. 

Sometimes you just need to know when to walk away, and yes, I really do want to see Owens wrestle again, as do many others. But this match is as good of a final match setting as Owens will ever get in his career. The only thing that could possibly top it is if they headlined WrestleMania against each other in Montreal but I don’t see that happening unfortunately. I don’t know if this was the final chapter of Kevin Owens’ career, but if it was, what an ending.