WWE Superstar Finn Bálor takes us through his journey as a diehard Spurs fan growing up in Bray, County Wicklow Ireland, as well as the creative synergy between Pro Wrestling and The Beautiful Game.
With a career that spans well over two decades, Finn Bálor has seen it all. Between the tough times and the triumph, the Judgement Day leader has carved out a Hall of Fame career both in the United States and Japan. Away from the squared circle, Bálor remains fiercely creative. Visual art, music, tattoos, even the way he works out… Everything circles back to a man vying to do things differently whilst remaining on top.
We caught up with one half of the World Tag Team Champions in the middle of WWE’s European tour to delve into it all. From the football culture European fans have bled into wrestling, to the moment he knew it was Spurs or nothing.
I guess a great place to start is - how does a kid from Bray growing up in the 80’s start supporting Spurs?
I have a bunch of brothers but one is two years older than me. I was heavily influenced by him and his choice was Tottenham…Which was heavily influenced by Gary Lineker, Paul Gascoigne so it was an easy decision for me from then.
You would have been pretty young when that famous side won the FA Cup in 1991?
Yeah I was 10 and it was a crazy, deep childhood memory that’s like etched into my soul!
What about your peers and colleagues - apart from the obvious ones (Sheamus and JD McDonagh/Liverpool…Drew/Rangers) are there any superstars that have unexpected allegiances to teams?
Erm..ha yeah so one person who is crazy into sports and a freak athlete in general is Angelo Dawkins. We were riding together for a while and we had a six hour drive one day. So I sat and explained the entire English football pyramid to him…he was completely blown away by the fact that you can get promoted and relegated! To him that was just completely mind-blowing and from that moment he became obsessed so I said he could pick any team outside the traditional top 4 - so he chose Fulham. But that didn’t really work out and he’s a Real Madrid fan now…
Are there any similarities between the worlds of football and wrestling that people might find surprising?
It’s all entertainment. People watch football to be entertained. People watch wrestling to be entertained. The biggest crossover for me - especially being in the UK at the moment - has to be the football culture of the chants starting to creep in.
It’s transcended football and bled into wrestling and now you’re getting soccer-esque chants on a regular basis. There’s the Roman Reigns one, the Dirty Dom (Mysterio) one, and of course the “Heyyyyy, hey Bayley…ooh ahh. That one especially felt important around the time of those NXT shows. It was like ‘oh, wrestling is cool again’ and it’s coming back out of the shadows and into the mainstream, back into pop culture and a lot of that started with the football culture bleeding into wrestling.
That actually follows on nicely to the next question - if you could bring over a chant from football to wrestling, for yourself. What would it be?
There was one in Dublin one night a couple of years ago, where it was like “shoes off, if you love Bálor!” And everyone had their shoes off. So that was pretty nice. There was also “Walking along, singing a song, walking in a Bálor Wonderland” (to the tune of Winter Wonderland)...Other than that, I’ve not given it too much though, I’m open to any chants by all means!
There’s been a lot of talk around the Americanisation of football at the moment. Half-time interviews, individual player walkouts during the Club World Cup. Are they any wrestling tropes you’d bring over to football and visa versa?
There has been a huge crossover. There's walk out songs, there's celebration songs, you know, to play in the stadiums when a team scores, or at the end of the game. But I'm more of a traditionalist and I'm kind of against the idea. The football is the spectacle. Nothing’s going to overshadow that, so why even bother, you know?
Let’s keep half-time to 15 minutes, instead of 25 minutes so we can fit in a Bad Bunny concert!
Nothing against Bad Bunny either. Fantastic performer. Listen, Bad Bunny had the greatest professional wrestling entrance I have ever seen in my life (at Backlash 2023). To this day, if I’m ever doing a heavy deadlift my go-to is Chambea because it takes me back to that moment. So Bad Bunny - respect brother!
Staying on the topic of music - I heard you mention Flying Without Wings (by Westlife) as a gym guilty pleasure during Sheamus’ Celtic Warrior Workout. What else keeps you locked in during those final reps?
Haha yeah! So there’s three artists that are heavily linked to each other - Pouya, Kxllswxtch & Fat Nick. They’re part of the All But 6 record label…It’s like dirty, grimy, Hip Hop/Rap that gets me in that ‘business time’ mode. That’s what fires me up for sure!
Your career has been shaped by creativity. From the ‘Demon’ gimmick, to forming the Bullet Club, and even now with the different guises of the Judgement Day…why has reinvention been so important to your longevity?
I was having this conversation last night and someone asked if I studied old tapes and looked back at stuff for inspiration and it’s actually the complete opposite. I don’t watch anything back because I don’t want to be subconsciously influenced and if I watch some sort of wrestling, it's gonna influence the way I wrestle. So I try to create it all in my own brain, like from scratch and hopefully I can create something that no one's ever seen before.
Sometimes I have what I think is something good, I pitch it, and it gets shut down. You never know if it’s gonna be your best idea, or your worst idea. But I’m someone who just has to get it out. Demonito is a recent case in point of that.
That creativity extends to your ring gear too. Can you tell us about your input in collaborating with designers?
I collaborate with my own designer who's a friend of mine from Ireland. I feel like we kind of understand each other in a way that not much needs to be said. In terms of the creative process. I feel like WWE does an incredible job of mass producing insane amounts of shirts. But, and not to discredit them at all, sometimes they just have a swamp with so many things. It can start to look the same. I've always kind of been of the opinion that if it's something that I would like to wear myself outside of the ring.. It's a good thought process to follow. So, I would say 98% of the shirts that are released have my handprints on them.
What does the future look like in terms of collaborating?
I think it's super important to get someone else's vision. Because I can have my vision and ‘Artist A’ will have one interpretation and then ‘Artist B’ will have something totally different based on the same thing. You can get like multiple versions of the same creation, but with a different kind of twist or a different flavour and I think that's super important, especially for longevity. I’m not someone who wants to repeat the same thing over and over.
It just makes it more interesting for me to collaborate with different people. To learn, to grow…You never want to become stagnant.
WWE will be taking over Paris this weekend as Seth Rollins, Jey Uso, CM Punk, and LA Knight go head to head in the third WWE ‘Clash’ event, taking place right in the heart of the city of love. This is not one to miss. Sunday 31 August, see you there.
Watch Finn Bálor compete at the WWE Bad Blood event on 5 October...
