At a live event in Lowell, Massachusetts, NXT Champion Finn Bálor lost his title to number one contender, Samoa Joe. This was the first time the WWE has had a title change of any nature occur in a house show since Primo and Epico defeated Air Boom (Kofi Kingston & Evan Bourne) in the January of 2012. This ends Bálor’s reign at 292 days, the longest in the short history of the title.
What does this mean for Finn Bálor?
Two weeks ago, “Machine Gun” Karl Anderson and Doc Luke Gallows appeared on Monday Night Raw, attacking the Usos after a win in the tag team tournament. Gallows and Anderson were huge parts of the wildly successful Bullet Club faction in New Japan Pro Wrestling. During their time with NJPW, Gallows and Anderson were dominant, winning the prestigious IWGP Tag Team Championship together three times. All in all, Bullet Club did all there was to do in New Japan. They’ve won the Heavyweight, Junior Heavyweight, Intercontinental, Tag Team, Junior Heavyweight Tag Team, NEVER Openweight, and NEVER Openweight Tag Team championships. And who started it all? Who founded this dominant faction? None other than Prince Devitt, aka Finn Bálor.
The WWE Shop has been selling Balor Club shirts since August of last year, and it only makes sense that Bálor would return to his rightful place as the leader of the group. While it’s true that AJ Styles, who is also on WWE’s main roster, also spent about two years as the faction’s leader, it doesn’t make sense for him to take charge. It doesn’t make sense for his character, and it doesn’t make sense for booking.
At Payback in Chicago, Styles will take on Roman Reigns for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. If he is to become the leader of WWE’s version of Bullet Club, Anderson and Gallows would have to help him win the match and the gold. It’s unlikely that WWE will take the title off of Reigns, especially to give it to someone who has spent as much time in TNA as Styles has, so that’s probably not going to happen.
A far more likely and popular solution would be to have Anderson and Gallows interrupt the match between Styles and Reigns, only to attack Styles, costing him the match and his shot at the championship. This helps establish the two as heels, and thickens the plot. The most exciting part about the debuts of teams like the Shield and the nWo wasn’t what was seen on TV, it was how much the WWE (or WCW) fan base didn’t know. Nobody was sure who the Shield were or why they were interrupting all the matches, and nobody had the slightest clue that Hulk Hogan was the third man in the NWO.
This also creates an exciting way to debut Bálor. Finn Bálor will be 35 years old at SummerSlam this year, and assuming the creative team don’t mess with his gimmick, he’ll be extremely popular with the fans. This is true regardless of whether he is a good guy or a villain. His trademark body paint and unique style of offense will excite even the most cynical of wrestling fans, and a red hot feud with someone as talented as AJ Styles to kickstart a main roster career would be, for lack of a better word, phenomenal. Bálor vs. Styles is an indy dream match, and the WWE would be wise to strike while the iron is hot.
What does this mean for Samoa Joe?
It had been rumored that losing to Finn Bálor at TakeOver: Dallas meant that Samoa Joe would be making his WWE main roster debut soon. Joe has been wrestling professionally since 1999, but when the big territories raided Ring of Honor in the mid-2000s, he opted to sign with TNA instead of WWE. He went on to be one of the company’s biggest, if most mismanaged talents for a decade. As TNA began to fall apart and the best talents began jumping ship, so did Joe. He appeared on WWE television for the first time on May 20th, 2015 at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable, saving an injured Sami Zayn from Kevin Owens.
Since then, he’s been NXT’s resident monster, feuding with everyone from Owens to Baron Corbin to Zayn to Bálor himself, but many were skeptical that he would ever capture NXT gold. While NXT obviously doesn’t harbor the same distaste for wrestlers from the independent scene that the main roster might, Samoa Joe is already 37, and a little old to be winning a developmental promotion’s championship. But, as it turns out, that’s exactly what happened.
Joe will likely hold on to the title until someone fills the void left by the likes of Bálor, Zayn, and Corbin as the biggest wrestlers in the promotion. Much like defeating the Undertaker at WrestleMania gave Brock Lesnar nuclear heat, whoever is able to take the NXT title from Samoa Joe will be given a big push. Bálor’s main roster debut is imminent, but that doesn’t mean he won’t finish up the program with Joe.
Stars like Enzo & Big Cass, Apollo Crews, Sami Zayn, and Baron Corbin have all been called up to the main roster recently, but that hasn’t stopped them from making appearances on the developmental show. NXT has yet to see a two time champion, and unless they’re going to pull the plug on Bálor’s call-up, it’s unlikely that they’ll put the belt on him again.
Moving Forward
Having the title change happen at a live event, as opposed to a TakeOver show, was a very smart choice. The NXT crowd has a very bittersweet relationship with their champions. While watching your favorite wrestler drop a title is heartbreaking, in NXT, it usually means they’re about to be called up to the main roster. Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Paige, and Sasha Banks have all remained NXT Champions while appearing on WWE television, but only Owens consistently had the championship on television.
If Bálor had to defend the title at another TakeOver event, it would have been obvious to the fans that he was going to lose. Also, unlike most wrestlers that come through NXT, Bálor has another identity. Finn Bálor has yet to be pinned when wearing the demon body paint that he pulls out for all of the pay per views. If he were to lose as the demon in the developmental promotion, it would weaken the gimmick. Now Finn Bálor can head up to the main roster and entertain the millions (and the millions), while Joe becomes one of the fiercest and toughest champions that NXT has ever seen.
Main Photo: WWE.com
