{"id":90563,"date":"2021-05-02T14:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-05-02T18:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=90563"},"modified":"2021-05-02T11:23:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T15:23:46","slug":"brogan-finlay-becomes-latest-finlay-to-join-family-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/05\/02\/brogan-finlay-becomes-latest-finlay-to-join-family-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Brogan Finlay Becomes Latest Finlay To Join Family Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This year, the Finlay family &#8211; one of the longest performing families in UK history as well as the world &#8211; welcomed the latest addition to the family business, when 18-year old <strong>Brogan Finlay<\/strong> made his pro wrestling debut as a student with <strong>AR Fox<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>WWA4 Wrestling School<\/strong> in Atlanta, Georgia. Since then he has debuted with Atlanta&#8217;s premier indie promotion, <strong>ACTION Wrestling<\/strong>, and now the fourth generation wrestler is looking to make an impact and follow in the footsteps of his brother, <strong>David Finlay<\/strong>, and his father, WWE, WCW &amp; World of Sport legend <strong>Fit Finlay<\/strong>, in the world of professional wrestling. But the Finlay legacy didn&#8217;t start with David &#8220;Fit&#8221; Finlay, who made his own debut back in 1974. Fit Finlay&#8217;s father, <strong>David Finlay Sr.<\/strong>, was a wrestler and promoter in Ireland, as were both of his grandfathers, <strong>William Finlay<\/strong> and <strong>John Liddell<\/strong>. Fit Finlay&#8217;s sister was also a referee.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My Boys \u2066@Brogan_finlay\u2069 &amp; \u2066<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/THEdavidfinlay?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@THEdavidfinlay<\/a>\u2069 at ringside together <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7HafT8RYOC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/7HafT8RYOC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fit Finlay (@ringfox1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ringfox1\/status\/1377822749872291842?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 2, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In the early days of Irish pro wrestling, William John Finlay was a frequent fighter at fairs throughout Ulster, working both pro wrestling and boxing, while John Douglas Liddell wrestled and ultimately became an early promoter in Belfast during the 1940s. David Finlay Sr. was born in 1936 and under the tutelage of his father and uncle, learned Olympic freestyle wrestling as well as the tricks and trades of professional wrestling. David Sr. became another pro wrestling star in Ireland, and by the early 1970s, was also promoting around the Ireland circuits. It was in 1974, when another competitor no-showed a show David Sr. was promoting in Glynn, Northern Ireland, that David Sr. finally put his son, David &#8220;Fit&#8221; Finlay Jr. into the ring at the age of 16 (he&#8217;d been training since he was eight).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/imgur.com\/GQmBzNz\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" title=\"source: imgur.com\" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/GQmBzNz.jpg\" width=\"461\" height=\"818\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>David &#8220;Fit&#8221; Finlay, Aged 16 Years Old (1974)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Fit Finlay moved to England in 1978 and began competing for <strong>Joint Promotions<\/strong> and on television with <em>World of Sport<\/em>, and in 1982 won the British Middle Heavyweight Championship. In 1983, he made his debut in Japan with <strong>New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW)<\/strong> for a two-month tour that saw him compete against the likes of the original <strong>Tiger Mask<\/strong>, while he also competed throughout Europe, becoming a regular with Austria&#8217;s legendary <strong>Catch Wrestling Association (CWA)<\/strong>, where he became a 3x CWA Middleweight Champion during the 1990s. He returned to NJPW in 1991 for <em><strong>Top of the Juniors II<\/strong><\/em> (the tournament that eventually became the <em><strong>Best of the Super Juniors<\/strong><\/em>) and competed in the <em>Top of the Junior<\/em> tournaments again in 1992 and 1994. When the tournament was rebranded as <em>Best of the Super Juniors<\/em>, he competed in its first entry in 1994. In 1996, Fit Finlay headed to the United States to join WCW, where he remained until WWE purchased the company in 2001. Upon WWE&#8217;s purchase, Finlay quietly retired and began working for WWE as a trainer, primarily working with the Divas division. But in 2004, he made a return to the ring, competing as a WWE Superstar until he was released in 2011. He briefly returned to the indies around the world before being hired back by WWE in 2012, where he continues to work as a road producer\/agent and trainer.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Johnny Saint vs. Fit Finlay - World of Sport\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/52DyOdMTcZU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Fit Finlay&#8217;s oldest son, David Finlay III, was born in Germany in 1993 while Fit was still competing for CWA, but it wasn&#8217;t long before the young man began training under his father and grandfather. In 2012, he made his pro wrestling debut in Germany (against future NXT UK Champion <strong>WALTER<\/strong>), before signing with NJPW and heading to the Dojo in Japan to become a Young Lion, debuting in 2015 <em>Best of the Super Juniors<\/em> to follow in his father&#8217;s footsteps. In 2016, Finlay became one of the very few Young Lions in New Japan history to ever wear championship gold, when he partnered with <strong>Ricochet<\/strong> and <strong>Satoshi Kojima<\/strong> to win the NEVER Open 6-Man Tag Team Championships, and in 2019, he began working <strong>Ring of Honor<\/strong> more regularly as a member of the <strong>Lifeblood<\/strong> faction. In January of 2020, Finlay and <strong>Juice Robinson<\/strong> &#8211; better known as <strong>FinJuice<\/strong> &#8211; captured the IWGP Tag Team titles, and recently the duo began working in <strong>IMPACT Wrestling<\/strong> as part of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/05\/01\/forbidden-door-challenges-wwe-universe-with-true-multi-verse\/\" target=\"_self\">The Forbidden Door<\/a>&#8220;, ultimately winning the IMPACT World Tag Team titles at <em><strong>IMPACT Sacrifice<\/strong><\/em> in March.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"FREE MATCH: Jyushin Thunder Liger vs. David Finlay Lion&#039;s Break 2018\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EtxTNcWniiE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And now enter 18-year old Brogan Finlay. A resident of Atlanta, Georgia (where his family relocated when his father headed to WCW), he began training in 2020 and made his ring debut at the beginning of 2021. On April 16, 2021, Brogan Riley made his debut with ACTION Wrestling &#8211; facing his WWA4 rival Bobby Flaco &#8211; at ACTION&#8217;s third-anniversary show, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/iwtv.live\/promotion\/action-wrestling#B3v9k0kLMq\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Oops, We Forgot To Buy An Anniversary Present!<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>While it&#8217;s still too early in young Brogan Riley&#8217;s career to suggest he&#8217;ll reach the levels of his father and brother, he&#8217;s got four generations of wrestling in his blood pumping through his heart and decades of training techniques in his DNA. The sky&#8217;s the limit, but now young Brogan is setting out on his own path to continue the Finlay family business.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Brogan Finlay vs Bobby Flaco. Wwa4 AtlantaGA\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PVZu7LLGFCM?start=6&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>More from LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span class=\"s1\">Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\"><span class=\"s2\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span class=\"s1\">Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\"><span class=\"s2\">LWOS Boards<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This year, the Finlay family &#8211; one of the longest performing families in UK history as well as the world &#8211; welcomed the latest addition to the family business, when 18-year old Brogan Finlay made his pro wrestling debut as a student with AR Fox&#8216;s WWA4 Wrestling School in Atlanta, Georgia. Since then he has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":90598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7675,1699,2342],"class_list":["post-90563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-america","tag-brogan-finlay","tag-david-finlay","tag-fit-finlay"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}