Finn Balor spoke with CBS Sports’ Shakiel Mahjouri ahead of Extreme Rules about his upcoming match with Edge, the rope breaking during his match with Roman Reigns, Dominik Mysterio, and a variety of other topics.
Balor was asked to comment on Triple H being in charge of creative:
“We’ve obviously worked very closely together for a long time in both runs in NXT. For me, the most exciting thing is, it feels more like a collaboration working with this new leadership and certainly the availability to exchange ideas, and compromise, and come to an agreement on something, or just get a face-to-face explanation of what the direction is. The way things were set up before, there were many layers of management. Sometimes it was very hard to get a straight answer, or at least a straight answer in a short time which is needed for live television. I feel like now that maybe the channels of communication are a lot more direct for everyone. I feel like that has certainly helped people stress less about the direction and focus more on executing the ideas as opposed to the ping pong back and forth between all the different layers of management and creative writers and writer’s assistants and writers assistant’s assistants before you got an answer. Triple H is very, very hands on in that respect and very easily accessible. He’s really accessible before every show, so any kind of queries that you have can be dealt with very, very quickly and ironed out pretty smoothly.”
On learning he was going to be in Judgment Day:
“The day before, and that was advance notice at that time. I was really smartened up and I was clued in and I was in the know, and don’t tell anybody this is happening tomorrow. You know, in WWE, we always have to be ready to adapt. A lot of things change at very short notice. Even when I was told the news about what was going to happen tomorrow, I wasn’t fully convinced. You just kind of take it and go, okay, if that happens, I’ll be interested and we’ll see tomorrow if it actually happens. I feel like now things have been a little bit more stable in the last couple of weeks and last couple months. Perhaps the storyline arcs are evolving as predicted. A lot of things change, or people get hurt, and people come back from injuries. There’s obviously those elements that we can’t predict, but I feel like right now, things have been moving pretty smoothly.”
Regarding Dominik Mysterio’s involvement in Judgment Day:
“I just want to make Dominik feel more comfortable. I feel like he’s a young guy in a cutthroat industry that probably has a lot of people jealous of him given the fact that his opportunity was maybe rushed due to the fact of who his father was. He has adapted and overcame and fitted into that role in the tag team with his father. Just as he’s getting comfortable in that role, he then had to completely change direction and adapt and fit into a new role. So really, if I can just make him feel in any way more comfortable with himself in the ring, that’s my objective. I feel like he’s far exceeded anyone’s expectations already, not only as a babyface, but as a heel. He’s really touched the heartstrings of people that really seem to dislike him right now which is the hardest thing to achieve, you know, being a heel character. So he’s got a huge future ahead of him. He has an incredible amount of potential. Obviously, his family lineage speaks for itself. I have no doubt that in the future he will step out and exceed his father’s shadow.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to Wrestling News for the transcription)
