Is time running out for Finn Balor?
This may come as a surprise, but I haven’t always been on the Balor bus. If I’m totally honest, until he was drafted from NXT to Raw in 2016, I had no idea he even existed. I wasn’t really following NXT at the time and other than passing mentions of his name, I had no clue who he was.
My hubby said to me the night Finn debuted on Raw ‘He does the Demon King thing in NXT, he’s right up your street’ Cue relentless Googling
The next week on Raw, he’s announced as one of the participants in one of two Fatal Four Way matches, the winner of each would face each other later that night on Raw. The winner of that match would go on to face Seth Rollins for the newly created Universal Championship at Summerslam.
At the start of Raw that night, they announced Finn would be participating in the first Fatal Four Way match and he had that moment where he emerged from the assembled crowd and I swear, my heart skipped a beat. Sometimes, I go back and watch this segment again just to see if I have the same reaction. I do…. Every. Damn. Time.
My wrestling background since the age of 8 has gone from fangirling over Shawn, Michaels, X-Pac and Jeff Hardy so really, Finn Balor isn’t a huge surprise, right?!
Don’t get me wrong, I am very, VERY, aware that I am the demographic Finn Balor is aimed at. It would be amiss of me not to acknowledge that yes, I think he is one of the most beautiful men on the planet and yes, it is perhaps the main reason I bought into him to start with but then I saw him wrestle.
I was totally blown away by how good he is. He’s quick, agile, solid & safe, yet a bit high flying and showboat-ey. I remember sitting there in the build up to Summerslam thinking ‘Where have you been hiding?’ Those few weeks in the build up to the Pay Per View were some of my favourite in recent memory. The Demon King felt old school yet with a modern twist.
I like to think I’m a bit of a transitional WWE fan because I was there through the ‘Attitude Era’ and I’ve seen the current era grow. I love when something transcends from one to the other and I really like the Demon King does that. I’m not sure if going forward it will. It has to be cleverly and properly built and booked but I see no reason why Demon Finn couldn’t be a secret weapon in the AJ, Good Brothers & Finn faction I’m building in my head.
Seth Rollins and Finn Balor have great chemistry in and out of the ring. Unbeknownst to me, I was also buying into Seth Rollins at the same time, it just took me another year to realise it.
By the time we reached Summerslam we were a universe divided. Rollins was on the roll of his life and Balor was the shiny new toy. In fact, I remember at the time I posted on Facebook ‘There’s something about Finn Balor’ and boy, was I right! There was then and there still is now is but since his injury, questionable booking and lack of momentum have made it harder to see. Trust me, there is still something about Finn Balor.
I find myself sitting here watching Monday Night Raw saying ‘When are they going to do something with him?’ I am hoping that whoever emerges victorious from this three way feud between him, Ziggler and McIntyre over the coming weeks will go on to be a legitimate contender for the Universal Title. I also think either of these three will be an incredible pick to win the Royal Rumble.
Back to task…. We all know what happened at Summerslam. Long story short, Seth throws Finn into barricade, Finn lands awkward, dislocates shoulder, pops it back in and match continues, Finn wins Universal Title. When you know what really happened during that match, it makes the match even more special. In fact, I’ve only been back and watched that match back once because knowing then what I know now, it makes my toes curl.
Being a relentless social media bug, I then see rumours circulating ‘Balor leaves the Brooklyn Centre in a sling’, ‘Balor injured in Summerslam main event’. I brush it off but when he relinquishes the title the next night on Raw, I, like many other Balor fans feel a bit lost. We’ve bought into this guy, this shiny new toy, this chap from NXT, this enigma from New Japan and now he was going to be on the shelf for nine months, what do we do now?
I went backwards, back to his NXT debut and up to his Raw debut. Back to his NJPW days and his time with the Bullet Club, back to his indie days where I realise he wrestled down the street from where I live and I had no idea who he was. The matches, the promos, the intensity, the clinics and most of all, the fun. Finn being injured didn’t shelve him for me, it gave me the opportunity to go back and truly appreciate who is he and what he does. It also ignited my love for NXT.
Finn Balor may not be getting the push he deserves on the main roster but thanks to him, I went back and fell in love with NXT. How many other people did the same?
I now find myself saying ‘NXT Bayley was so much better than Raw Bayley’
The thing I struggle with the most right now is how far away from the Universal Title picture he appears to be. It’s not like they haven’t teased it. He came out on Miz TV and announced he was going to get his title back and when Roman Reigns won the Universal Title from Brock Lesnar, Finn was his first title defence on Raw. But as the weeks roll on, he seems further and further away from it.
In that moment following Summerslam 2016 he was at the top of the mountain, an undeniable Triple H guys who was pushed to the top because of it. You can’t help but think that the injury cost him more than nine months of his life. Kevin Owens picked up the helm briefly, but WWE retreated to Goldberg as the champion as the default, the nostalgia, the ‘already done it and knows what he’s doing’.
I ask you this; Is there now a distinct lack of trust and confidence in any new talent holding a major title because when they did allow emerging talent to hold a title, they were injured straight away? That’s a pretty rough burden to bear but you can’t help but think it might be true.
All NXT talent who have been moved to either Raw or Smackdown have been given an obvious settling in period before even glimpsing gold.
Right now, there appears to be an obvious gap between the quality of booking and storylines that appear on NXT versus that which appear on Raw and Smackdown every week. Is it because Triple H has better creative control over NXT? Is it because the NXT superstars who are called up to the main roster are watered down and lose their grit? Please share your thoughts on this.
So the months roll on and on and on and finally Finn Balor returns the Raw after Wrestlemania in 2017, which is notoriously THE most insane night of the year. The crowd are pumped, ready for the new year, the new stories and the new feuds. Finn’s return, although well received, was slightly dampened by the fact he’d been working house shows leading up to ‘Mania and his return was all over social media. Thank you to those who tagged me in #FinnIsBack
Since he came back to Raw, he’s drifted in and out of stories and matches, clearly doing his best with what he’s been given but I do question how he’s been used and how well his return was capitalised upon.
The first couple of months I was sat in the edge of my seat, waiting, hanging on, wondering why he wasn’t immediately thrown back into the Universal Title picture. Roman Reigns was on an obvious rise to the top regardless of how fans felt about him and at the time WWE were more concerned with a nostalgic pop than anything else and Finn being included in that conversation seemed less and less likely.
Love or hate Roman Reigns’ character, him winning the Universal Title gave us the opportunity to believe again. It gave us the chance to speculate what the future may hold for that belt, we dreamt up dream matches, played out storylines, threw curve balls into the mix and it made us genuinely believe that our guy, Finn, could perhaps be considered as a legitimate contender for that belt.
And at the time when Reigns climbed to the top of the mountain, WWE higher ups were more concerned with who they felt should be at the top of the food chain, they were not paying attention to the organic growth of superstars who win fans over without really trying. The ones who have a deeper connection with fans based on how they carry themselves both inside and outside the ring, the ones like Titus O’Neil, who is perhaps the most amazing human being on the planet & Daniel Bryan who promotes a vegan lifestyle and animal rights and is finally getting the push he deserves. Finn Balor constantly promotes his PE&K brand to advocate wellbeing, inclusiveness, sustainability and just being excellent to each other and the planet. How can you not love this guy? These are the guys I want as my WWE champion and my life coaches!
So how long are we going to have to wait until Finn gets the push he deserves? It crossed my mind recently that perhaps due to his experience he might be placed with some emerging NXT talent to bring them along on the main roster? That would be OK too.
The current storyline with Drew and Dolph does suit me well purely because I love Finn, Drew is from Ayr, Scotland like my Gran and Dolph is from Cleveland and my cousin works in the same bar he used to work security for. I’m so invested in this storyline for reasons beyond WWE.
Reasons beyond WWE.
You ask your mid card to attend media events and promotions to get fans to buy into your product. The big secret is that fans buy into the people that represent the product, not the product itself. Why are you not making these people your champions?
Sometimes I think I’m nothing more than a frustrated WWE fan who wants more from the people I like. Maybe Finn is happy propping up the mid-card? Maybe he’s happy to use his WWE platform to promote his other interests, ie PE&K. Maybe, as fans, we don’t help his cause by being placated by a flash of the abs and a cheeky Irish smile, maybe it’s time we looked beyond this and asked for more? Fergal Devitt can deliver depth and poise and mystery and intrigue, as well as technical brilliance, captivating story telling and mat grappling only a few can aspire to emulate. The potential is out of this world.
With WWE now claiming to listen to their audience, I ask them to please consider how powerful Finn Balor as Universal Champion would be. Has time run out for Finn Balor? In my opinion, not quite, but ask me in a year and the answer could be yes.
