Finn Balor Casts Doubt on Using Demon Persona in WWE Again
Finn Balor has had some start-stop momentum throughout his WWE career. Upon arriving in NXT, Balor was red hot. He impressed in his early NXT TakeOver matches and rode that wave to an NXT Championship win, reigning with the black and gold brand's top prize for a record-setting run at the time. Balor wasted no time come his main roster debut, pinning Roman Reigns clean on his first Monday Night Raw and going on to WWE SummerSlam 2016 to become the inaugural WWE Universal Champion. An ill-timed injury forced Balor to vacate that title less than 24 hours later, and except for a short return to NXT from 2019 until 2021, he really has not been the same.
Things began to look up for Balor when he joined The Judgment Day last year. Turning heel for the first time on the main roster, Balor appeared reinvigorated with this new attitude. That said, the win-loss column didn't reflect it.
What could have been a career-making victory at WWE WrestleMania 39 against Edge actually ended up being a confusing loss. Balor brought back his demon persona for this Hell in a Cell clash, body paint that he was almost unbeatable in, yet was pinned.
"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 told After The Bell regarding his alter ego. "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."
Aside from that one bump in the road, Balor is having his best run on the main roster right now, and he is personally feeling the boost from his heel turn.
"I feel like it's reinvigorated me on a personal level. I don't really wanna speak too much from a professional level, I haven't really completed that stage of the journey yet. I feel personally that I'm back enjoying my work, I feel refreshed," Balor said. "I feel creative again, and it's something that I haven't really had the chance to fully explore this type of character on Raw or SmackDown. It's something I wanted to really do on a second run in NXT, but when we lost interaction with the crowd, we kinda had to tweak and adjust course to change the character because of no audience in the arena. This is the version of the Prince that I wanted to deliver in NXT three years ago."
Balor challenges Seth Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship this Saturday at WWE Money in the Bank.