Was Finn Balor Really “Ruined” at WWE Extreme Rules?

You saw the match–and you saw the reactions. Tommy Starr explores if any real “damage” was done to Finn Balor (and The Demon) at WWE Extreme Rules.

It has been really fascinating to see the numerous articles and post-show recaps of WWE Extreme Rules 2021, particularly the articles and videos that center around this notion that Finn Balor and the Demon character were “ruined” at Extreme Rules.  Perhaps the argument can be made that, specifically, the gimmick was “ruined.”  Statistically speaking, if we discount Balor’s loss to Roman Reigns this past Sunday night, Balor only has one recorded loss under the Demon persona; that loss took place at NXT Takeover: The End, when Balor lost his Steel Cage Match against Samoa Joe via pinfall.  So, if you want to make the case that WWE royally buried the Demon character, that’s a different conversation.  However, in attempting to analyze the bigger picture, what else was there left to ruin about the wrestler, Finn Balor, prior to this show?

Balor’s main roster run in WWE is one of the most poorly managed, mishandled stories of the last several years.  As an international star that came into NXT with all the pomp and circumstance, it became abundant right out of the gate that Hunter’s vision was to build the NXT brand around Balor as his top champion.  What we seem to forget, however, is that following Balor’s main roster call-up as part of the 2016 Draft Lottery, WWE had every intent to run with Balor as a top guy on Raw.  Within the first week of his Raw debut (7/25/16), he won a qualifying four way match, pinned Roman Reigns clean– who mind you, at this point was one of the most protected guys in the company and still in Vince’s long-term vision to make “THE” guy, bulldozed his way into the SummerSlam semi-main, and defeated Seth Rollins clean to become the inaugural Universal Champion.  Keep in mind, all of this occurred within the span of one month!

Unfortunately, one bad bump and one subsequent shoulder surgery later, not only did Balor have to voluntarily strip himself of the Universal Championship, but he was also “Dolph Ziggler’d.”  If you are ignorant to the “Ziggler’d” trope amongst the internet community, the cliffs notes version is that, following Dolph Ziggler’s successful Money in the Bank cash-in in 2013 to become the World Heavyweight Champion, he had undergone a concussion, which not only forced a cancellation of a title match for the upcoming Extreme Rules PPV, but it also left Ziggler off of television for an entire month while he was still champion.  Not only was WWE prompt in taking the title off of him, but they never went back to the well with Ziggler as a top guy or world champion ever again; thus, we have had eight straight years of Ziggler floundering in the proverbial mid card purgatory that so many guys find themselves in on the main roster.  And if WWE ever “teased” the idea of letting Ziggler out of that mid card bubble over the years, he was very rapidly shoved back in.  The exact same thing happened to Balor as a result of that shoulder injury.

Whether it was oscillating in mid card programs with Bray Wyatt or Baron Corbin, toying around the Intercontinental Championship scene for an extended period of time, playing the “peripheral background role” in Survivor Series tag matches and Money in the Bank ladder matches, back-and-forth 50/50 booking, off-and-on pushes, etc., Balor quickly fulfilled the role of “J.A.G. (Just Another Guy)” following that unfortunate injury.

To this day, for one reason or another, WWE seems to have this refusal mentality of ever seeing or pushing Finn Balor as a top star or world champion on the main roster ever again.  He has been put in those title positions before, i.e. his Universal Title program with Brock Lesnar in 2019 and his recent Universal Title program with Roman Reigns this past Sunday.  However, much like the Ziggler effect, Vince and WWE refuse to pull the trigger with Balor as world champion. What is difficult to rationalize is that, given Balor’s track record and history on the main roster over the last five or so years, why is this suddenly some huge news bulletin that Balor was “ruined” or “destroyed” at Extreme Rules 2021?  Perhaps, the booking of the finish expedited the outburst of longstanding frustration for a lot of fans.  However, some brief revisionist history will show that with every program he has been involved with post-SummerSlam 2016, Finn Balor was ruined and destroyed long before 2021.

Sources:

Goodwillie, I., & Ian Goodwillie (147 Articles Published) . (2020, December 10). 10 ways WWE has failed Finn Bálor. TheSportster. Retrieved September 28, 2021, from https://www.thesportster.com/wrestling/finn-balor-how-wwe-failed-him/.

Mishra , P. (2021, September 24). Has Finn Balor ever lost in Demon Character? EssentiallySports. Retrieved September 28, 2021, from https://www.essentiallysports.com/wwe-news-has-finn-balor-ever-lost-in-demon-character-roman-reigns-samoa-joe/.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, September 14). Dolph Ziggler. Wikipedia. Retrieved September 28, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolph_Ziggler#World_Heavyweight_Champion_(2012%E2%80%932013).

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, September 27). Finn Bálor. Wikipedia. Retrieved September 28, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_B%C3%A1lor#Universal_Champion_(2016%E2%80%932017).