Finn Balor has explained why he doesn’t lean into the side of pro wrestling that he knows would help his career, saying on the latest episode of What’s Your Story? With Stephanie McMahon, he won’t say things on the mic that he doesn’t mean.
Stephanie was asking Balor about the press and media side of being a top WWE wrestler. He told her that side of the job is something he has actively shied away from for years, not because he can’t do it but because he doesn’t want to.
“For me, the worst possible scenario is something like a morning show where you’re, like, sitting on a couch, and you have to do, like, a 90-second hit, and, like, get all this information out, and try and sell the product. It’s not my personality. I would rather have, like, a long, in-depth conversation and touch on all these things.”
He then pushed deeper, into trash talk specifically.
“That’s another thing that’s been really difficult for me in my career, is, like, trash-talking. I’m not willing to sacrifice my dignity to say these things that I don’t mean. And again, I know it would be better for the retweet.”
Stephanie asked if he treats trash talk as playing a character. Balor pushed back on the premise.
“I feel like I got to this position being myself. So I shouldn’t change that, ever.”
He traced the gap back to where he learned to wrestle. Two of his three career stops before WWE didn’t include verbal work.
“I started in England, where it was mostly based on mat wrestling. And then I went to Japan, and it was based on Strong Style wrestling. There was no, like, promos. So the first time I actually had to do a promo was when I came to NXT. And I remember being so nervous because the NXT tape, and I had to come out and say, I’m Finn Balor, and I’m the future. And I remember being so nervous, really, having to remember that line. What is that line? And just because that becomes acting. When I’m wrestling, I’m not acting. I’m in flow. I’m just going with my emotions, following what I believe is right in my heart to do. But as soon as the speaking part started, that was a real learning curve.”
He framed his catch-up problem in years.
“I’ve gotten a little bit better at it over the 12, 13 years that I’m here. But I’ve been wrestling, say, 25 years, of doing, been doing promos 13. So it’s like, I’m way behind with that experience in promos.”
Balor credited Paul Heyman with reframing how he approaches them recently. The lesson was to treat a promo the same way as a match.
“Paul said, like, you got to treat your promos like your matches, like, you’re not nervous going into your match. You don’t know every move you’re going to do. You’re just flowing and you’re there and you’re in that state. But your promos, you’re trying to memorize every word. And that’s not how you execute your matches. That’s not how you should execute your promos. So recently, I’ve kind of been taking that more on board. Not having, like, hey, I need it to sound exactly like this, word for word. Just, like, the couple of bullet points. And that’s really helped a lot.”
Balor said the part of the job he understands needs to get done is promotion of his own matches, even if media is not his preference.
“I understand the promotional aspect of it. And when I’m asked, hey, we need you to do this, obviously I’m going to do it. If it’s a choice of, hey, would you like to go to this event or walk this red carpet, yeah, yeah.”
He compared his preference for performing over speaking to a fellow WWE star who works differently.
“I mean this with the greatest respect towards one of my colleagues, Cody, but, like, I feel like, although we love wrestling, we’re very different personalities in the sense that when he enters a room, he wants to be the center of attention and likes to entertain and likes to tell stories. Where I would rather probably not even enter the room, and if I did, I just want to blend into the background a little bit, and just be an observer more than like a participant. But it kind of contradicts everything with regards to wrestling, because wrestling is like how I express myself. I don’t feel like I express myself better speaking. I express myself better physically with, like, my performance, than I do speaking.”
Balor came up in the UK indie scene starting in 2000, then moved to New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 2006, where he wrestled for eight years as Prince Devitt. He joined WWE in 2014.
If you use quotes from this article, please credit What’s Your Story? With Stephanie McMahon and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
