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EspañolWithin three months of each other, two of WWE’s most celebrated stars called it quits. John Cena, WWE’s homegrown household hero, had a year-long victory lap in 2025; a winding, boisterous sendoff for the man who carried WWE for the better part of 20 years. He was soon followed into retirement by one of his greatest rivals, the man who put TNA Wrestling on the map, then parlayed his tremendous work in Japan into a Hall of Fame WWE career: AJ Styles. Yet somewhere between WWE’s Superman and Wolverine exists Finn Balor, a man who, like the other two, has a decades-spanning résumé that holds up against any and all of his contemporaries. He has a chance to add World Heavyweight Champion to his extensive list of accomplishments this Saturday against CM Punk at WWE's Elimination Chamber, and all he’s learned along the way informs where he’s headed — and ultimately, where he wants to end up.
Balor has been so many things to so many people across his decade-long WWE tenure, yet there’s no real throwaway point in time. He was NXT’s diabolical and dedicated Demon, dropping from the heavens to put his boots right through his opponents’ chests as challenged for and defended the NXT Championship. He went from upstart to usurper, steamrolling the top of the "Raw" roster to become WWE's first Universal Champion. He reconvened with his Bullet Club compatriots, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows, to form “Balor Club,” win multiple Intercontinental titles, and eventually returned to NXT as the uncrowned Prince, tearing down the kingdom he helped build en route to his second NXT Championship. Then, in a move that defined the past few years of his career, he adopted the old mantra — if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em — accepting his invitation into the ranks of The Judgement Day and excommunicating its founder, Edge. As the group added and subtracted members over the years, Grand Slam Champion Balor was the constant in the purple-and-black crew that has dominated "Raw" for the past few years.
Amid all the things he’s tried, and all the different roles he’s been asked to play, for Finn Balor, it’s all just a product of good, hard work and lengthy preparation.
“I feel like there's a lot to be said for doing things the right way and learning the right way," he tells Uncrowned. "I not only studied catch wrestling in the UK, but then I spent eight years in the [New Japan Pro-Wrestling] dojo in Tokyo, and then got retrained again in NXT.
"A lot of people, once they do their initial training and they start wrestling, they actually stop training. But for me, I was training for 16 years before I came to WWE, and then I trained again in the WWE style.”
The merging of all he’s learned and experienced have made Balor a champion multiple times over, whether he was positioned as the top guy, a faction leader, or the catalyst to shake up the scene.
With The Judgement Day in particular, he’s been their CM Punk — the same player/coach his Elimination Chamber opponent uses as a handle across social media. Balor is, by far, the most traveled, decorated and experienced member of the group, but he doesn’t see that as anything to hold over their heads. Both former stablemate Rhea Ripley and current partner-in-purple Liv Morgan have raved about working with Balor, saying that while he’s always there to answer questions and offer advice, he’s never made having more experience negate what they themselves have learned and what they’ve accomplished.
“Rhea is a superstar, Liv is a superstar. Raquel [Rodriguez] is a superstar. [Roxanne Perez] is a superstar in the making," Balor says.
"I don't know what Liv has had to go through in her life to make it to WWE. I don't know what Rhea has had to go through to make it all the way from Australia to be a world champion in WWE. So everyone has their own story, everyone has their own obstacles, and everyone has their own mountain that they've climbed to get here. And regardless of what mountains I've climbed, I need to respect the mountains that everyone else has climbed, too. And I feel like that's a really, really important thing in this business, is to respect everyone and treat everyone the same.”
Balor, the man from Ireland who plied his trade in Japan and helped birth one of the most enduring wrestling factions ever — NJPW's Bullet Club — is quick to point out that, just like his estimation of the talent in the Judgement Day, he’s not more responsible for anyone’s success than they are themselves. Neither are the banners they fly, the colors they wear or who surrounds them. From Balor’s initial 2013 iteration of the Bullet Club, both he and current WWE Tag Team Champion Tama Tonga are in WWE. Gallows and Anderson were both on hand for the retirement ceremony of Balor’s replacement, Styles. And across the aisle, the Young Buck’s influence over tag-team wrestling helped birth AEW.
But according to Balor, the Bullet Club — the brand that helped launch a ton of careers and even more Hot Topics — was blessed to have those talents, not the other way around. “I feel like everyone you mentioned [Styles, Cody Rhodes, The Tongans, Young Bucks, Kenny Omega] is a world-class performer," he says. "Obviously, the thing that links us all was at one point in time, we were part of the Bullet Club. But I feel like everyone is very much an individual with their own unique set of skills, and are more than competent of being a success with or without the Bullet Club.
"So I do think that Bullet Club link obviously is relevant, and it's something that bonds us all. But I think we're all very unique individual performers that, outside of the Bullet Club, would have been successful.”
Of all those names, Balor was the first one to win a WWE world championship, doing so in 2016, a month before Styles. After winning a Fatal 4-Way match, then defeating Roman Reigns in a singles match, Balor earned his way into a contest to crown the first WWE Universal Champion, with its red leather strap signifying its ties to "Raw." He won the title by defeating Seth Rollins, but had to relinquish it the following day due to a shoulder injury. It’s the kind of thing that might break a lesser person — getting to the mountaintop, only to seemingly slip and slide down the other side. But for Balor, the summit isn’t meant to be sat on; you plant your flag, then find the next peak to prove yourself on.
“Relinquishing the Universal Championship due to injury is not a tragedy," he says a decade later. "Winning the Universal Championship was a success story.
"My first night, I beat Roman. Three weeks later, I beat Seth on my first [WWE] pay-per-view. I become the champion. That's a success. That's me choosing to look at the glass half-full, where everyone else chooses to look at the glass half-empty on what-if. And all these what-ifs have been asked to me for the last 10 years. I feel like you can learn a lot from a win, but you can learn a lot more from a loss. And I learned a lot about myself from getting [injured]. That was the first time I'd ever had time off in 16 years. So it was the first time I got to sit down, process what's happened, process where I'm at, and process the success that I've achieved in the 16 years, becoming the first Universal Champion.”
To be asked about something that happened 10 years ago that didn’t end your career, didn’t wreck your body, and didn’t break your spirit is likely annoying, but it also allows Balor to flex a bit, to make sure it’s understood that he didn’t spend the next 10 years wallowing or waiting. It was 10 years of championships, 10 years of WrestleMania moments, 10 years of excellence as a solo talent or key member of a winning team. But it was also 10 years of seeing familiar faces wind down and clock out for the final time. So Balor, 44, ageless in physique and mobility, is completely aware that this thing isn’t promised forever.
“Seeing John [Cena] retire was obviously very emotional. Seeing AJ retire … someone who's had a similar path to me, was just that little bit older, a couple steps ahead of me — he was someone that I considered the benchmark of where I needed to be," Balor says. "Seeing him retire made me realize, ‘Oh, retirement is just around the corner for me, too. And you've still got this big stain on your career that everyone keeps asking you, 'What if?' And in Belfast [in January], when I lost to Punk [for the World Heavyweight Title], I realized the time is running out and you need to fix this quickly. So that's what I'm trying to do. I need to right the wrong of what happened 10 years ago — not for me, but for everyone else.”
I realized the time is running out and you need to fix this quickly. So that’s what I’m trying to do. I need to right the wrong of what happened 10 years ago — not for me, but for everyone else.
He has another chance to right that perceived wrong at Saturday's Elimination Chamber, where he’ll once again challenge CM Punk for the World Heavyweight Championship.
After that unsuccessful attempt in Northern Ireland to start 2026, the back half of this home-and-home challenge takes place in Punk’s hallowed house of Chicago. Balor has made it no secret that he finds Punk’s claim of “Best in the World” to be fraudulent — and not because of what Punk hasn’t done, but because of what Balor has. A student everywhere, a star everywhere, a champion everywhere — it could be anyone standing across from him, and he’d make the same assertion.
And while Balor knows he’s on the clock, he’s not asking that clock to slow down. Instead, he’s reading the minutes, knowing that as long as there’s time left, there’s time enough for the Prince to reclaim his throne. “I feel like it's always my time, because I'm the main character in my life," he says. "And I'm smart enough to realize that if you're in the game as long as I am, you're not always going to be at the top. There's only so many spots at the top of the mountain.
"You've got to be patient. But when the opportunity comes, you've got to deliver. And in Belfast, when the opportunity came, I delivered — which subsequently led to another opportunity, the opportunity in Chicago. So perhaps people in life should maybe slow down a little bit and zoom out a little bit, and need to stop looking for this instant gratification. 'I want everything now, I want it now,' whereas not everyone can have everything all the time. But when your time comes, be ready, be capable, and succeed. And that's what I plan on doing in Chicago."