Finn Balor says he initially felt like he was “wasting” his career in WWE NXT
While speaking to Off The Ball, Finn Balor reflected on the start of his WWE career as part of the NXT brand. Here is what Balor had to say…
“The stuff that I learned in NXT, like, I’m still applying to my craft now.
And I remember being in NXT about three months and, like you said, I’d a couple months previous just done the Tokyo Dome in front of 50,000, 60,000 people. And then all of a sudden I’m, you know, doing rolls and bumps in a warehouse in Florida, like preparing me for what? Like, I feel like I am prepared, right?
And I remember having a conversation with my coach at the time, Terry Taylor, saying, ‘Terry, like, I’m 34. Like, I’m wasting my career here. Like, these are my prime years. I need to be in the ring. I need to be on the show.’
And he simply said, he said, ‘Finn, the style you’ve been wrestling for the last 16 years, if you continue that, you’ve got about two, three more years left in the tank. I’m trying to teach you a style that’s going to extend your career and get you another 10 years in the ring.’
And here we are, 12 years later, and I feel better than ever.
So, I owe a debt of gratitude to Terry Taylor, one of my guys, and a lot of the other coaches at the Performance Center as well. Norman Smiley, Matt Bloom is someone who I’ve worked very closely with, and, yeah, all those guys really, really helped me kind of adapt to the different style that WWE has because it is different.”