10 WWE Superstars Who Have Been Hurt The Most By The Wild Card Rule

7. Finn Balor

The Miz Shinsuke Nakamura
WWE.com

For a guy that was supposed to be the new face of the flagship show three years ago, it's scary to see how far Finn Balor has fallen in WWE since then.

Of course, injuries aren't anyone's fault, but Balor's booking for the better part of 2019 has been questionable, to say the least. He was off to a solid start at the beginning of the year by facing Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble before becoming a two-time Intercontinental champion, but his television time was drastically curtailed following the Superstar Shake-Up thanks to the Wild Card Rule.

His move to SmackDown Live in the Shake-Up was originally seen as a positive by many. However, despite being Intercontinental champion at the time, he was virtually never featured on the blue brand. He had a mini feud with Andrade that lasted a few weeks and was largely absent on WWE TV afterward.

Balor requesting time off to get married led to the obvious decision of WWE having him drop the title to Shinsuke Nakamura at Extreme Rules. He was then used to put over the re-debuting Bray Wyatt at SummerSlam and has yet to resurface.

It's unknown when Balor is due back, but it'd be best for WWE to hold off on having him return until during the Draft when he can be properly assigned to one show or the other.

Contributor
Contributor

Since 2008, Graham has been a diehard pro wrestling fan and, in 2010, he combined his passions for WWE and writing when he joined Bleacher Report. Equipped with a master's in journalism, Graham has contributed to WhatCulture, FanSided's Daily DDT, Sports Betting Dime, and GateHouse Media. Along the way, he has conducted interviews with wrestling superstars like Chris Jericho, Edge, Goldberg, Christian, Diamond Dallas Page, Jim Ross, Adam Cole, Tessa Blanchard, Ryback, and Nick Aldis among others.