Finn Bálor Recalls His Nasty Cut During His WrestleMania 39 Match, Getting His Head Stapled Mid-Match

During a recent interview with Insight with Chris Van Vliet, WWE Superstar Finn Bálor spoke about his WrestleMania 39 experience, where he faced Adam Copeland (aka Edge) in a Hell in a Cell match. Bálor revealed that he suffered a torn muscle injury about three weeks before the event.

Bálor also recalled the incident where he suffered a deep cut during the match, and he started visibly bleeding, causing the match to be momentarily paused so he could get his cut stapled mid-match. Below are some highlights from Insight:

Finn Bálor on Suffering a Torn Muscle Before WrestleMania 39

“I’ve torn plenty of muscles, trust me. Yeah, actually, I think we are going to talk about the Edge cage match? So three weeks before WrestleMania 39 I get asked to do an impromptu [match]. I’m a Raw performer, but they say, ‘Hey, can you come to SmackDown and do a match on SmackDown? It’s like a six-man tag or something. I remember I grabbed Cruz Del Toro in a front face lock, and I stepped backwards to tag Damian, and as I stepped backwards, I tore my calf. At first I thought like Cruz was messing with me and slapping me in the back of the leg, and then I looked down and his arms were around my waist. I’m like, oh no, this is bad. So I tagged out, and I’m on the apron, I’m stretching it a little bit. Doesn’t feel too bad but I got to get back in there. I’m like doing the math in my head. How long to WrestleMania? How long does a calf injury take to repair?”

On It Happening When He Was on the Ring Apron

“Yeah. I finished the match, and I probably made it worse by finishing the match, because you put more stress through the tear, and people don’t know I was on one of those little scooters for three weeks. We did a promo two weeks before Mania on Raw, and the way we did it, I think Edge was in the ring, and they just brought me out on the stage, but we shot around it, where I kind of like limped out and just stood there, stood on the stage, going, ‘I’ll see you in two weeks at WrestleMania,’ or whatever, and then they killed the lights and I hobbled back, got on my little scooter in the backstage. So there’s lots of little injuries that all the boys are dealing with all the time, and we’re trying to work around.”

On If He Knew He’d Make It to WrestleMania 39

“No. It was a conversation with Bruce the next week; it was actually right before that promo that we were doing. ‘Hey, can you make it? It’s two weeks away.’ I said, dude, I can make it. Just trust me, I can make it. I’m not missing WrestleMania.”

On Not Being Confident He’d Make It to WrestleMania

“I was not that confident, but I was at the Performance Center every day. We have a great medical team down there, and really, the guys down there got me right, it was right on the limit. The day of, I was strapped up, I couldn’t really flex my foot the way it was strapped, and it did get helped by the fact that it was a cage match, and they didn’t have to move around so much. Actually, a similar thing happened this year at WrestleMania with Dom. I had gotten beat up by the Judgment Day. I think I’d been out for a week. Dom was having a match against Penta on Raw. It’s like three weeks before Mania. I do the run-in, I come back, I beat up JD, I beat up Dom, I throw him over the top rope, and I’m in street clothes. I’m gonna do the dive over the top rope, but I’m in street clothes.

“So, as I’m running, I wear baggier T-shirts, and I go oh, I haven’t done the dive in a while, and I wonder, is this T-shirt gonna get snagged on the top rope, and am I gonna get stuck like Top Dolla? This was going through my head as I’m running against the ropes, so as I’m coming back I see the boys outside the ring. I said I gotta jump extra high and I gotta tuck faster than I normally tuck, because I normally kind of extend a little bit, but I tucked early and as I tucked, I popped a rib right in the air, not on the landing, or when they caught me, in the air. I popped the rib, and I remember the boys caught me, great, put me down. I stood up, I fired up like this, and I said, f*ck, I popped the rib, no! Then again, same situation, three weeks to Mania. How long does the rib take to heal? Oh, sh*t! So then now it was again just this last WrestleMania, it was race against time to get the rib. The problem with the rib recovery is you can’t do anything, there’s no rehab, you can’t do anything really. So it was kind of touch and go, and that was kind of a factor into why the match was changed to a street fight because I was able to rely more on the toys, the weapons and stuff, than have to actually, you know, wrist locks and twists and rolls and stuff like that.”

On Wrestling the Match Hurt

“Yeah, but everyone wrestles hurt, everyone’s dealing with some issue. So I’m not trying to put myself over from being some badass, everyone wrestles hurt, but a lot of people don’t hear these little stories of like the little issues that we go through to get out there.”

Finn Balor on If There Was Ever a Point The Match Almost Got Called Off Due to the Blood

“So me and Edge had spoke before the match, and I said, ‘Hey, dude, if you want to throw the ladder at me…’ There was a spot where he was gonna hit me with the ladder. I said, ‘Dude, if I’ve got my back to you, just throw it and hit me in the back. If I turn, just hit me with it.’ So I’d still got my back [turned], and he starts throwing it, but I guess I turned at the wrong moment, and then no problem, I just put my hands up and block it. But it’s a ladder, it’s not a chair, so the rungs were here and here, and it just went right through my hands, and in that moment, my brain couldn’t understand why it was still coming towards me, because my hands were up. I was like, what’s going on here? So it just went and it hit me. I was like, that stung, but it’s fine. So, I’m just selling on the ring, and then referee Shawn Bennett comes over, and he goes, ‘Buddy, you okay?’ I said, yeah, I’m fine. He goes, ‘What day is it? I said, ‘It’s WrestleMania, dude.’ You sure you’re okay? I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Dude, you’re carved open.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t worry, it’s fine. [He said] ‘They’re telling me we’re gonna stop the match if you don’t get treatment.’ I’m like, ‘Don’t stop the match, I’m fine.’

“They bring the doc into the cage, so I crawl over to the edge of the ring, where the door is for the cage, right? So now the doctor is trying to get in the door, but the door is locked. They opened the door, then she left her medical bag outside because she didn’t realize it’s so bad. They needed to staple me up. So then she has to go back out the door, which is on the ramp side, around the cage, over to the bell keeper’s to get the medical kit, she goes back in the door, and there’s a camera here. Now, I don’t know if the red light’s on or not. Now, thankfully, Edge, super experienced, realized there’s an issue, so he goes outside, keeps the cameras busy by looking under the ring, taking out toys, throwing them in the ring.

“Meanwhile, the doctor’s going, ‘Dude, you’re split open, like we got to staple it.’ I said, ‘What are you waiting for? Staple it.’ She goes, ‘It’s gonna hurt.’ It’s WrestleMania doc. But at this point, then the camera comes around and it’s here, and I guess they were just shooting, but it wasn’t live, but I can’t see if the red lights are on or not, because I’m looking at the doc, so I started saying to her, [in Demon voice] ‘Staple it!’ Because I go into Demon character, to where the doc Michelle just goes [frightened], because she’d never seen me perform as a Demon before, it would have been a while, and she was like new at the company, so we always kind of giggle about that, but yeah, the staples went in. Finished the match. It was fine. I’m sure that footage lives somewhere.”

On If the Ladder or the Staples Hurt Worse

“Neither really hurt at all. In that moment, nothing hurts. If something hurts in the ring, you know that’s a serious injury. If you really feel it, most stuff you don’t feel until the next day.”

Edge was victorious over Finn Bálor in the Hell in a Cell bout.