Why now is the perfect time for WWE to bring back Finn Balor’s Demon

The Post’s Joseph Staszewski brings you around the world of professional wrestling in his weekly column, Post Match Angle.

Finn Balor needs a reboot, and there is no better time than now.

The Irishman came to WWE via NXT in 2014 as arguably the best wrestler in the world and one of the industry’s hottest free agents after his run in New Japan. The Bullet Club founder had an excellent NXT run — where his TakeOver matches as The Demon were can’t miss. He followed by becoming the first Universal championship only to have to relinquish the title the next night because of a shoulder injury.

Since then, Balor has had a solid WWE run as a five-time tag team champion, two-time Intercontinental champion and one reign as United States champion. But it never felt like he had a real solid creative direction until joining The Judgment Day.

The company has only used the Demon sparsely on the main roster, never giving it the gravitas it received in NXT.

The Demon went 6‐0 in NXT and is 7-2 on the main roster, but those two defeats came in the last two matches in the body paint.

The Demon lost to Roman Reigns — with the infamous magically breaking turnbuckle at Extreme Rules in 2021 — and then to Edge at WrestleMania 39. Prior to that, it was used twice in 2019.

Now is the time to put Balor in position to bring it back and have it used correctly, and there are a lot of good reasons why.

His street fight loss to Damian Priest on Monday felt like the blow-off to their months-long feud. It should leave Balor’s character disheartened and put his standing in Judgment Day in jeopardy as he keeps taking veiled shots at Liv Morgan and has only seen failure since telling the group to follow his lead.

His rock bottom should set him on the path to rediscovering his Demon inside and come with a real World Heavyweight championship push. Who better than the Demon to take down someone like a Gunther?

The creative infrastructure is in place with Triple H, and especially director of character development Rob Fee, to make the Demon’s return a meaningful event after the work he did with Bray Wyatt and the Wyatt Sicks.

Yes, the top of WWE’s card is very crowded at the moment, so Balor making it back there won’t happen overnight. But it’s time to put all the tools back in Balor’s toolbox to give him the opportunity to get back on the path.

The 10 Count

This week in Kevin Was Right: Kevin Owens isn’t wrong saying Cody Rhodes would have been better off letting The Bloodline handle its own issues and beat up on themselves. He forgave The Rock, Roman Reigns is Tribal Chief again, Reigns is coming for Rhodes’ title and the champ is still fighting Solo Sikoa’s Bloodline weekly. Leave it to Owens to make Rock being nice to Rhodes fit in the story. 

Powerhouse Hobbs winning the gauntlet match to become Jon Moxley’s next challenger for the AEW World championship makes a lot of sense. Beating Hobbs will only make Moxley feel more dangerous and Hobbs feels like he’s fit well with Rated FTR as Team AEW starts coming together against the Death Riders.

Naomi needs some kind of big moment after Bayley pinned her, and Bianca Belair opens the door for her to lose the No. 1 contenders match for the WWE Women’s championship by accident, whipping her with her braid. Her friends are failing her. Eventually, enough has to be enough.

AEW delivered two things I didn’t see coming. Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay seem to have found common ground against Don Callis. They have never teamed, so it should be a treat when it finally happens. Also, MJF starting a program with Jeff Jarrett caught me off guard, but the former AEW world champion’s in-ring style should mesh well with the “Last Outlaw.” 

There was certainly a part of me rooting for Dakota Kai because of the injuries she’s had to overcome, but Lyra Valkyria has a chance to be a workhorse first women’s Intercontinental champion for WWE. Do they reignite a storyline with a returning Becky Lynch to further cement her standing as champion?

The close to NXT felt like Roxanne Perez’s farewell to the brand and the beginning of a main roster program with Bayley that should start with her costing the Role Model her WWE women’s championship match with Tiffany Stratton. Then, Bayley can eliminate Perez from the Royal Rumble.

WWE sending DIY down to face Axiom and Nathan Frazier really is a credit to what the NXT Tag Team champions have done. They seem like big fish in a small pond right now and Frazier posted a cool old photo of himself to X in a DIY shirt.

Harley Cameron winning her first AEW match should feel like a big deal and the crowd reaction she got after pushing Mariah May on Collision felt like a good start. At Grand Slam, in her home country of Australia, feels like the right place. I’d have Wednesday’s gauntlet match end before she even gets in the ring as the last participant to add to the audience’s sympathy for her.

Vince McMahon settling his case with the SEC is a small win for the former WWE boss, but far from what he made it sound like in his statement. X even added a “Readers adding context” blurb to his post to clarify the situation. His legal troubles are far from over. He still faces a sexual assault and sex trafficking civil trial with accuser Janel Grant and is being investigated by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York over the accusations made in the civil case.

MLW has a pretty solid match concept with Gravity Gamble. The multiple briefcases can allow you to interject different weapons in the match and adds a few layers for storytelling

Wrestler of the Week

Matt Riddle, MLW

Riddle returned to MLW after being let go by WWE to come full circle with the promotion after failing to claim the world heavyweight championship in his first go-around in 2018. He completed that mission by pinning Satoshi Kojima at Kings of Colosseum on Sunday. Riddle now gets to be the flagbearer for MLW.

Social Media Post of the Week

Match of the Week

Nic Nemeth vs. Joe Hendry, TNA World championship at Genesis (Sunday, 8 p.m., TNA+) 

There may be no more popular wrestler in TNA than Hendry, and the company has been dancing around putting the world title on him for months, including him losing a triple-threat match for the championship in December. This feels like the time to complete his rise and for Hendry end Nemeth’s six-month reign. Add in the unknown of JBL’s intent with helping Nemeth and you have a very intriguing main event.