Finn Balor rejoined NXT on Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at the start of the Wednesday Night War. Speaking with Newsweek, Balor opened up about why he prefers NXT to Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown and spoke about how NXT has changed into his time as the top gun in Full Sail Live.
Below are some highlights.
Finn Balor on why NXT’s mentality excites him
I think a lot of it has to do with the schedule. We were touring heavily with NXT and with RAW and SmackDown. With NXT in my first run, we were all at the Performance Center every day. You get to really know [the other wrestlers] on a personal level, and on RAW and SmackDown, you worked four nights a week before you ever locked up with someone on TV.
You’re having live event matches all around the country against one person, so you’re very familiar with their movements and what they do on the ring.
I watched all these NXT superstars [today] and I admire them and have the utmost respect for all of them, but going in there with someone, there’s obviously a lot of expectations on the match. If it’s Finn Bálor returning to NXT versus Matt Riddle and we have absolutely never met, we’re locking up for the first time on a Takeover with a lot of expectations, a lot of pressure, a lot of eyes on us, it’s that kind of pressure that makes you feel alive.
When the red light is on, that’s when you come into your own and you sink or swim, and it’s been a real sink-or-swim mentality every night that I’ve been in the ring in NXT so far.
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Finn Balor talks how NXT has changed
My first run in NXT, we were doing four tapings a night once a month, so obviously those nights were hectic. We went in on a Wednesday night to the NXT arena with four weeks of TV to shoot in one night. You know that’s gonna be a busy night.
I think my first TV taping… bear in mind, I just came from Japan where there’s no real, in a sense, TV-slash-live event matches. It’s basically go out there and you do it. If you’re shooting for TV or not, you’re doing the same thing.
WWE’s very very different. That first four-show block of taping I had three matches and one in-ring promo. Bear in mind that I never performed the WWE style or worked for time, for commercial breaks, so that was a very much trial by fire with regards to having to learn fast. I really feel like that’s something that kind of over-prepared me for being on RAW and being on SmackDown.
Now, NXT is once a week live, it’s a two-hour show as opposed to a one-hour show. I feel like the styles have changed a lot, but with regards to the core values of NXT they are the same. Everyone’s working together, there’s great direction, there’s very much a mentality of everyone wants to go out there and do better than everyone else.
Finn Balor and Adam Cole both learned two falls a piece in the Iron Man Match to crown a new NXT champion. As a result, both men will face off in a singles match next Tuesday on USA Network.
