The Demon was used to great effect during Finn Balor's first NXT run, but it soon became apparent that while using that gimmick, he'd almost certainly never lose.
That trope carried over to the main roster, but WWE really dropped the ball on this monstrous persona on RAW and SmackDown, and it felt like a gimmick that was primarily used to sell merchandise. These days, the Demon appears sporadically, likely because Balor is portraying a very different character as the heel leader of The Judgement Day.
During a recent interview, the former Universal Champion reflected on bringing The Demon to WWE and opened up on why he believes it didn't work quite as well on the main roster as it had in Japan.
"It became a crutch. I'll hold my hand up and say I'm guilty of trying to please too many people and not please myself," Balor admits. "The thing with that character, or even a lot of the stuff that I was doing in WWE in general, was a result of trying to please too many people, be it the creative team, the writing team, the merchandise team, the promotions team, the tickets team and not really pleasing myself."
"When the Demon character was conceived in Japan, it was something that didn't really have a rhyme or reason, but it was just something that I felt I could express myself and mold myself better in the moment when I needed to go into that zone."
"When you bring it into the WWE Universe, it has to become something or it has to have a reason why this happens, why this transformation happens, and I feel like the more you try and explain something, the less sense that actually makes and the more ridiculous it becomes," he continued. "For me, that was the crutch that I felt."
"It wasn't necessarily the process of the paint or the creative part of trying to execute a different unique design every time, it was to try to keep so many people happy and not really staying true to myself and why I was doing it in the first place."
On the main roster, we saw the Demon treated like some sort of supernatural being (a Vince McMahon call, no doubt) so it's not surprising to hear Balor wasn't fully on board with where the concept was taken.
Whether he'll unleash his inner beast during his match against Seth Rollins later today at Money in the Bank remains to be seen!
Would you like to see more of Balor's Demon in WWE?