8 Reasons Finn Balor Will Be WWE's Best NXT Call-Up
2. Balor Is Used To Big Stages
Tyler Breeze is the perfect example of a small-room gimmick that just doesn’t translate to larger arenas. The facility used by NXT at Full Sail University fits just under 400 people. It’s a tight, compact room that keeps the performers very close to the fans, and thus allows them to build the kind of connections that just wouldn’t be possible with fans sat in row Z at one of Raw and SmackDown’s hockey arenas.
Such workers just aren’t given the direction they need to adjust their character to appeal to a wider audience, and they suffer for it. While Breeze has certainly fallen victim to a lot of creative misdirections, he has failed to get over in front of bigger audiences. See also: Apollo Crews.
Balor, however, will have no such difficulty. Unlike most of his predecessors, Balor isn’t coming solely from a background of performing in front of a few hundred spectators at indy shows and NXT itself. He’s done his fair share of that, sure, but Balor also spent eight years working for the second biggest wrestling company in the world: NJPW.
He has performed at the gigantic Tokyo Dome on seven separate occasions, all of which drew crowds of over 20,000, with three pulling more than 40,000 to the event. From the 16,000-capacity Osaka-jo Hall to the storied Ryougoku Sumo Hall, Balor is just as comfortable performing before thousands as he is hundreds.
Some are blinded by the spotlight, but not Finn Balor. He will be right at home performing for WWE’s 10,000+ audiences on a weekly basis.