Finn Balor On Why He Moved to NXT, Not Finding The Success He Wanted On Main Roster

– Finn Balor spoke with Corey Graves on the latest After the Bell about his move to NXT, why he didn’t quite have the success he wanted on the main roster and more. Balor made his return to NXT on the first episode of NXT on USA Network and has since become a major part of the show, turning heel on Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa. He will face Matt Riddle on this month’s NXT Takeover: WarGames. You can check out some highlights and the full podcast below:

On how his move to NXT came to be: “It came to be a couple months ago. You know, things weren’t kind of going as smoothly or really – I don’t want to say ‘as smoothly,’ but I just wasn’t happy with where I was at at Raw and Smackdown. Had a conversation with Hunter, we pinged some ideas back and forth. I took a little time off, came back at NXT and it’s all been awesome since.”

On not finding the level of success that he wanted to have on the main roster: “I don’t know, people gauge success differently, you know? Not everyone can be champion, but for me, I was having a great time on Raw. I was going out there, I was learning, I was adapting. And sometimes you just gotta make the best of what you’re given in those situations. And you know, I feel like I always made the best of anything that I was given. I don’t think there was anything that was a failure, so to speak. I just feel like maybe I’m guilty of not, kinda being a squeaky wheel sometimes with regards, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do that. Hey, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’”

On his time off being able to give him a mental reset: “You know, I think definitely the time away helped me kind of re-evaluate, you know, how I view myself and how I kinda appreciate my own input. Because dude, I was doing this for 16 years before I came to the to WWE. And you know, every idea, every match, every entrance, every costume is your own thought. It comes from your own imagination. And then all of a sudden, you’re in this machine that is telling you what to wear, telling you what to say, telling you what to do. And I’ll hold my hands up and say, dude, I’m guilty of just going, ‘Okay, yeah, no problem. Whatever you guys want. I’m a team player. I’m gonna do whatever it is, toe the company line.’ And I think that probably affected a lot of not only my performances, but maybe my creativity, not believing in what I was doing out there, but doing what people wanted me to do.”

On his new mindset going into NXT: “With the time off and kind of resetting and re-evaluating everything. I feel like that I’m not playing ball anymore, that I’m going to do whatever I want to do. I think I value myself a little more as a performer. And as I said, I’m not going to play ball anymore. I’m gonna do what I want to do. If people like it, cool. If they don’t, cool. But I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not. A lot of people said, ‘Hey, Finn’s gone back to NXT.’ But really, I’ve just come back to being myself.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE’s After the Bell with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.