The REAL Reason WWE Is Pushing Finn Bálor
We’ve seen some evidence of this already. Bálor was positioned to excel on Monday’s RAW. Tellingly, it was Bálor who literally soared over the field during RAW’s chaotic opening melee. In the excellent six-man tag to which that awesome spot was a prelude, Bálor didn’t just sell and sell, as if starring in a live theatre adaptation of the Last Temptation of Christ—likely in a gambit to tempt him away from Cody’s advances. As he slammed Dean Ambrose to the mat with the sort of arm drags Ricky Steamboat would be proud of—again, any recent Twitter critics have certainly been worked by bad booking—Michael Cole talked up his iron man stint in last year’s Royal Rumble match. He wasn’t the star of that RAW match—Seth Rollins, with his superb new moonsault, found himself in the telling Roman Reigns role—but he wasn’t a torture porn protagonist, either.
WWE is very high on Finn Bálor, at least for the short term, because the company is petrified of losing him to the emerging All Elite Wrestling organisation. As desperately cynical as this is, and as galling as the impetus behind Bálor’s renewed push is, it is progress.
Previously, WWE has responded to the threat of competition by denying talent to the competition, rather than promoting its existing talent effectively. We are already in the midst of a new paradigm; per Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin, AEW’s contract offers are comparable to WWE’s on financial terms, and per Dave Meltzer, they are negotiated on a bespoke basis. Chris Jericho is free to promote his cruise endeavour, and appear for New Japan Pro Wrestling. AEW will not prohibit from Joey Janela from promoting shows of his own. AEW is offering comparable remuneration and a degree of creative freedom in order to attract those WWE stars with very little of it—and since Bálor entered WWE on a creative tear, the fear is that he could very well exit on one, too.
There’s something poetic about this, in that the bullies of pro wrestling are now being bullied into action themselves.
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