Finn Balor Explains How Backstage Politics Led to Him Returning to WWE NXT
Finn Balor made the jump from WWE's main roster back to NXT in October 2019. Said run was only supposed to last a few months, but it wound up being lasting well over a year as Balor reinvented himself as "The Prince" and put on multiple Match of the Year contenders in a second run as NXT Champion. Balor has admitted in previous interviews that he feels that second NXT tenure was the best time period of his career, and while appearing on the My Love Letter to Wrestling podcast this week he explained that it was backstage politics that drove him into wanting to make the move in the first place.
"I feel like I got a little bit stale. I was tired. I was exhausted. I was worn out by dealing with the politics, the office, the writers, and everything that goes with it. I just had enough," Balor explained. "When I returned to NXT, I really felt like that rejuvenated me in the ring. One thing I felt that helped with all the negative effects of the pandemic was taking the fans out of the equation in wrestling makes you change the cadence and the tempo of the match because you're not trying to perform for a large audience. You're literally performing in a one-on-one environment, and you can really work on the details of the match. You're not so reliant on hearing the audible response from the crowd.
"I would produce a match to get a yea or a boo or a holy s— but then when you take that element out of it, you can get back down to the nuts and bolts of what I actually learned in Japan which is just gritty wrestling," he continued. "I really feel that despite all the negative things that the pandemic brought us, it brought me that one positive thing that I can really get back to wrestling for me and the way I like to wrestle. I'm now finding that balance of how can I keep that art form of the way I like to wrestle in front of big crowds when you're on a limited time frame with TV wrestling? I feel that finding that balance is going to be the most difficult thing."
Balor also noted that he feels the best of his career is still yet to come and teased the idea of bringing his heel persona to the main roster. Unfortunately, he hasn't found much success on either SmackDown or Raw since his July 2021 return. He failed to beat Reigns for the Universal Championship twice, lost in the King of the Ring tournament finals, lost to Austin Theory on last week's Raw and isn't officially booked for the Royal Rumble this Saturday.