Finn Balor Opens Up About Promo Struggles In WWE, Reveals Advice From Paul Heyman That ‘Helped A Lot’

WWE

Monday Night Raw superstar Finn Balor has opened up about his struggles with talking on the microphone in WWE, as well as some advice from Paul Heyman that “helped a lot.”

With 12 years under his belt in WWE, Finn Balor is one of the company’s most tenured and revered names currently on the active roster.

While the former Judgment Day star has a litany of major accomplishments in the company, he has now openly discussed the aspect of being a WWE star that he’s never felt truly comfortable with: talking.

During his appearance on What’s Your Story? With Stephanie McMahon, Balor discussed his preference to express himself in the ring rather than on the mic or via media appearances, drawing a comparison between himself and Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes – who very much enjoys being “the center of attention.”

Balor said:

“I don’t know if there’s a reason, I think there’s different types of people in the world. Some people like to be the center of attention and like to have their voice heard or like to tell stories. I mean this with the greatest respect towards one of my colleagues Cody but I feel like, although we love wrestling, we’re very different personalities. In a sense that when he enters a room he wants to be the center of attention and likes to entertain and likes to tell stories, where I would rather probably not even enter the room, and if I did I’d wanna just blend into the background a little bit and be an observer rather than a participant.

“But it kind of contradicts everything when it comes to wrestling because wrestling is how I express myself and I feel like I express myself better physically with my performance than I do speaking. So, that’s why I’ve kinda, especially in the past couple of years, shied away from doing media, podcasts, public speaking, everything. I love to wrestle and I know other things come with it, and I know if I perhaps invested more time in the speaking part, I know it would be better for my career but it’s just not something that I’m willing to give.”

“I don’t think it’s a problem, I feel like it’s one part of the job that I don’t excel at. But it’s one part of the job that I don’t necessarily want to excel at. I just want to be in the ring performing, in the back with the boys hanging out and do my job.”

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Stephanie McMahon would then ask Finn about self promotion, with the Irish star saying he has no problem doing media appearances when asked, but will often opt out of optional ones:

“I understand the promotional aspect of it and when I’m asked, ‘Hey, we need you to do this,’ obviously I’m gonna do it. But if it’s a choice of, ‘Hey would you like to go to this event? Or walk this red carpet? I’ll be like, ‘I’m ok.’”

“I feel like I’m better in this type of environment when it’s an actual conversation. The worst possible scenario is something like a morning show when you’re sitting on a couch and you have to do like a 90 second hit and get all this information out and try and sell the product.

“It’s not my personality. I would rather have a long, in depth conversation and touch on all these things instead of just like, ‘Hey, the show’s on Monday, it’s at 8 o’clock, watch it on Netflix.’

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When discussing his struggles with trash talking, Balor pointed out how his journey before WWE did little to prepare him for the performative aspects of the job, as the emphasis of wrestling in the UK and in Japan was more on in-ring action than talking.

Balor continued:

“That’s another thing that’s been difficult for me is trash talking. I’m not willing to sacrifice my dignity to say these things I don’t mean. I feel like I got to this position my being myself, so I shouldn’t change that ever.

“I started in England where it was mostly based on mat wrestling, then I went to Japan where it was based on strong style wrestling, there was no promos. So the first time I actually had to do a promo was NXT. And I remember being so nervous because the NXT taping I had to come out and say, ‘I’m Finn Balor and I’m the future.’ And I remember being so nervous having to remember that line because that becomes acting.

“When I’m wrestling I’m not acting, I’m in flow, I’m going with my emotions, following what I believe is right in my heart to do. But as soon as the speaking part started that was a real learning curve. I’ve gotten a little bit better at it over the 12-13 years I’ve been here. But I’ve been in wrestling 25 years, I’ve been doing promos (for) 13, so I’m way behind with that experience in promos.”

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Balor would then share some advice he received from Paul Heyman in regards to promos which he’s recently taken on board, with the Hall of Famer instructing Balor to treat promos like he would a match in WWE:

“One thing I’ve kind of only started to learn recently, and I’ll credit Paul Heyman with this, because he said, ‘You’ve got to treat your promos like your matches. You’re not nervous going into your match, you don’t know every move you’re gonna do, you’re just flowing a you’re in that state. But your promos you’re trying to memorise every word. That’s not how you execute your matches, so that’s not how you should execute your promos.’

“So recently I’ve been taking more of that on board. Not having it like, I need it to sound exactly like this word for word, just a couple of bullet points, and that’s really helped a lot.”

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• wwe
• paul heyman
• Finn Balor

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