Finn Balor quickly cemented himself as the face of NXT and, when he was called up to the main roster, there was a lot of excitement among fans.
Initially, WWE pushed him as a main eventer and he became the first-ever Universal Champion at SummerSlam in 2016. Balor was unlucky enough to sustain an injury during the match and, when he returned, it was clear Vince McMahon had lost faith in him.
Stop-and-start pushes followed and a complete lack of understanding when it came to The Demon resulted in that gimmick being damaged beyond repair.
Balor ended up stuck in the midcard, only for his fortunes to turn around when he took The Judgement Day from Edge (McMahon had plans to give the group a supernatural schtick; fortunately for Balor, Triple H took charge soon after).
Talking to What's The Story, Balor called the months leading up to that 2022 angle one of the worst points in his pro wrestling career.
"I haven’t said this publicly, ever, but the two months before I turned heel was probably the lowest I’d been in my career with respect to investment level, the personal investment. I was just showing up. I was going, ‘Yeah, who do you want me to lose to today?’ It was just kind of the same sh*t that I’d been doing over and over again, and I was doing the same act for so long, and I just felt like I had so much more to give."
"But it wasn’t anyone’s fault. There were a lot of factors that led to this. One of them was COVID because COVID meant that my green card process got all f*cked up, and then, because of that, I had to go home to Ireland for two months right before WrestleMania, so then I was kind of out of the buildup to WrestleMania."
Despite not blaming anyone for his misfortunes, it's obvious McMahon was primarily to blame. Elsewhere in the conversation, Balor credited Edge with giving his career the jumpstart it so desperately needed.
"We’re just throwing sh*t at the wall, and it was kind of Edge who was the one who said, ‘No, I want this guy. This guy—we're not using him enough. I want him in Judgment Day,’ and that’s kind of where things started to turn, and then we went with the story of putting me and AJ [Styles] and Liv [Morgan] together as a little kind of faction just so I had someone to turn on."
"That was literally set up just for me to turn, and originally, I was supposed to turn on AJ, but then it all changed. I turned on Edge because I think someone got injured, and they needed to turn Edge back babyface or something like that. One domino falls, the whole stack goes."
Balor also confirmed he's signed a five-year deal with WWE, meaning he'll likely end his career there. With Triple H now in charge, the future looks bright for the Irishman, particularly as his collaboration with The Game in NXT was such a success.