During a recent appearance on the “After the Bell with Corey Graves” podcast, Finn Balor commented on the rebranding of WWE NXT 2.0, why he thinks it was needed, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the reason he thinks NXT 2.0 was needed: “It was needed. I don’t want to say it was getting stale, but having been there for about a year and a half in my second run, I felt like all the matches had taken place. It was kind of going in a cycle over and over again and something needed to change. Pretty much as soon as I left, 2.0 came in and it was a completely new crop of superstars, young fresh people. Me, as a fan, when I was younger, I never took joy out of seeing the same matches or same people every week. I was always hungry for, ‘Who is this new guy, what’s his backstory? Where did he come from? I wonder what moves he does.’ I was so curious about wanting to learn about these new guys. And me, as a fan, that’s what I want.”
On the criticism of the rebrand and what he finds most appealing about it: “As soon as I moved back to SmackDown and NXT 2.0 came out, it was so cool to see completely new people. I was only gone out the door about a month and there were people I had never even met before on TV. It was obviously hugely surprising. Maybe a lot of people in the business were like, ‘That’s stupid, who are these guys? They haven’t paid their dues.’ But for me, as a fan, I think, ‘Wow, this is cool. These are guys I’ve never even heard their names and now they’re on TV and succeeding.’ I remember watching the WarGames Match and these four relatively new guys in the ring with four experienced guys and it’s incredible and something completely fresh. Maybe I’m so jaded and exhausted from seeing so much over the years, but it was cool to see new guys doing new stuff. It’s unpredictable in the sense that you don’t know their spots, you don’t know their routine or their shtick. You’re getting to see and witness something new for the first time and that’s pretty rare. Hats off to NXT for risking it all and really committing to 2.0.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
