After wrestling Sheamus in both Liverpool and Leeds as part of WWE’s latest European Tour, Finn Balor was pulled from WWE’s event in Nottingham, England due to an undisclosed injury. PWInsider‘s Mike Johnson is reporting that the decision was a precautionary move, “to rest what is believed to be a minor issue.” WWE is set to end its overseas tour tonight with a live event in Manchester, England.ย
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After dropping the NXT Championship to Karrion Kross at NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver and failing to win it back in a rematch, Balor was bumped back up to the SmackDown roster in mid-July. He then eventually worked his way into a Universal Championship match with Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules, only to lose when the top turnbuckle broke during his final attempt at a Coup de Grace. He was then drafted over to Raw and made it to the finals of the King of the Ring Tournament before losing to Xavier Woods at Crown Jewel.ย
While Balor was often asked during his latest run in NXT about when he’d be back on the main roster, “The Prince” has since stated that was the best era (2019-21) of his career.ย
“The idea of going back to NXT was to give Finn Balor a break from RAW and a break from SmackDown,” Balor said while on The Bump. “It was to reset the character. It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than three months. It was to give me a little rest off TV, rest off the road and to kind of give me a reboot and revamp. Obviously, things folded a lot differently than we expected; it turned into a two-year run almost in NXT.
“For me, personally, I feel like it’s the best work that I’ve put into my career. To do that at 19, 20 years into your career is quite strange,” he continued. “I really feel like I’ve just started to come into my best stride in NXT in recent months. I’m so grateful, obviously, for the opportunity to be in NXT and to be part of a new NXT landscape that’s completely changed. The guys there have completely changed the boundaries of what NXT is. To be in the ring with guys like Kyle [O’Reilly], guys like Pete [Dunne], it’s impossible to not have a good time.”
UPDATE: Balor returned to action on Wednesday night at WWE’s Live event in Manchester.ย
