We speak to Ireland’s next big thing in the WWE.
WWE NXT superstar and Bray’s own Finn Bálor talks to JOE about his favourite ever WWE match, his all time heroes, his unique ring entrance and his views on Conor McGregor.
Finn Bálor has made an extraordinary impact since being signed by the WWE two years ago.
The Wicklow man holds the record for the longest reign as NXT Champion (292 days), and now he will compete in NXT’s first ever steel cage match against his fierce rival Samoa Joe at the NXT TakeOver in June.
NXT is coming to Belfast on June 13 in the SSE Arena and Dublin on June 14 at the 3Arena as part of its UK and Irish tour and, with everyone excited about what Finn Bálor is going to do, we got chatting with ‘The Demon” himself.
The 34-year-old spoke about his awe of Irish and British wrestling fans, comparing their noise levels to their football-supporting counterparts (Bálor is a big fan of Irish football), as well as explaining the nerves he experiences every time he comes out to the ring.
Extremely humble, determined, funny, a great lover of Lego (no, really!), an individual who Triple H gushed to us about and just an all round sound man; Bálor proved to be a fascinating interviewee.
About his mesmeric ring entrance
It is one of the more iconic ring entrances in modern day WWE, yet Bálor described his own initial plans for the Demon intro as a “terrible idea at the time!”.
In case you’ve never seen it before, here it is in all its glory. We think it’s pretty swell.
Clip via WWE
Which brought us along nicely to…
His favourite ever WWE entrance
“Oh, that’s a tough one!”, said Bálor.
“One specific entrance that springs to mind is Shawn Michaels flying into the ring from above against Bret Hart before their Wrestlemania Iron Man match.”
Hard to argue with that choice.
Clip via WWE
His favourite ever WWE match as a fan
Bálor really took a shine to the above classic from Wrestlemania XII, naming the Iron Man epic from 1996 as his all time favourite match, describing the encounter as “having everything”.
If you’ve never seen the classic yourself, give it a gander here.
Shawn Michaels vs Bret The Hitman Hart… by goproteam
Incidentally, he has two personal standout moments from his NXT career to date; his infamous match with Adrian Neville at NXT TakeOver, as well as his title-winning bout against Kevin Owens – one of Bálor’s closest friends in the industry.
Clip via JustWrestling
His top three favourite WWE superstars in history…
We thought that this question might have taken a bit of time to answer, but Bálor was immediately all over it.
“Definitely Shawn Michaels, he was the jack of all trades, or should I say master!”
“I also always loved Dynamite Kid from Britain and Jushin Thunder Liger was a another hero of mine”.
Clip via WWE
The state of Irish wrestling at present…
With OTT, CCW and the Fight Factory in Bray (something that Bálor is personally involved in) going strong in the country, Bálor was full of praise for the current state of Irish wrestling.
“It’s in a great place right now”, said the superstar.
“I’m actually a bit jealous, because it’s probably the strongest it’s ever been and I’ve love to be directly involved.”
“Hopefully, we’ll get one or two more over Irish wrestlers over to the WWE in the near future”.
Finally, we couldn’t leave the man go without asking him about another Irish fighting star in Conor McGregor…
“Ah, I’m a big McGregor fan, of course.
“What he’s done for Irish sport and how he’s stayed on top is a great achievement”, said Bálor.
As for ever facing The Notorious in the ring, the Bray native laughed, before saying;
“I would never, in a million years, get into a UFC cage with Conor McGregor!
“As for coming to the WWE? He’s very welcome here. We’d love to have him.”
We may not have heard the last about that one so…
If you fancy heading along to the NXT tour (including the Download Festival) of Ireland and the UK, here are the dates:
Friday, June 10 – Sunday June 12 – Download Festival, Donington Park, Derby
NXT is available every Wednesday night live on the WWE Network.
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