8 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SummerSlam 2023 (Results & Review)
2. Finn ‘Never Forgot’
WWE’s insistence on continuing the fallacy of Finn Balor harboring a seven-year grudge against Seth Rollins for injuring him at SummerSlam 2016 when the Prince won the inaugural Universal Championship is mind-blowing – especially when it’s plainly obvious that this isn’t true.
Finn wore body art, “seven” scrawled across the shoulder injured in that fateful match. Michael Cole double-downed on this theme, saying Balor “never forgot” Rollins injuring him. And then Rollins triple-downed by wearing the same vest he wore in that 2016 match.
Here’s the problem: Beyond just the fact that both were babyfaces for years on the same roster and Balor never brought it up in a sustained manner until recently, the two actually have teamed up. A lot. They’ve been on the same team nine times in tag matches, including four times when they were the only two on their team (traditional tag and handicap matches).
That’s quite a lot of opportunity, spread out over four years, for Balor to get revenge, or to even say he doesn’t trust Rollins. But that’s not what we got.
The seven-year history is something that could have factored into the feud, but making it the central focus when it was mostly fabricated isn’t good storytelling, it’s over-capitalizing on a happy happenstance.