WWE 24: Finn Balor Review

The journey over the last seven months has been

as tough mentally as it has been physically.

I feel like a caged animal right now. I'm just

waiting for him to open the door and let me run

free. Welcome to the podcast arena coming to

the ring at this time Hello and welcome to Mayhem

Mikes, this is episode 40, I am of course TF2

and Mike, joining me as always, Ryan the Inane

Flowmarkly, hello sir. Hello. And tonight we're

going to be doing another of our WWE Network

coverage things, we're going to be talking about

WWE 24, which is the ongoing series that WWE

has. It's WWE 24 on Finn Balor. Most specifically

Finn Ballard's knee. Yeah So this chronicles

basically Finn's Being promoted to the main roster

from NXT it has part of his NXT career in there

Obviously where he grew up in Ireland and all

that and everything else, but it basically highlights

the portion where The shoulder not knee. Why

did I say knee? What the hell is wrong somebody

put an arrow to your eye? I know why I was thinking

of a I was thinking of a special guest star near

the end Yes Yeah, so Finn's shoulder because

when Finn debuted he was For a very brief time

like miniscule amount of time. He was the first

ever Universal Champion and Less than 24 hours.

Yeah. Yeah, like I said a miniscule amount of

time If you're the champion for less than a day,

that's miniscule in my mind when it comes to

WWE. But it basically chronicles his rise and

sort of fall and come back into the WWE from,

I think it's, is it 2016 to 2017? I believe so,

yeah. I believe so. I think that's what it is.

I could be wrong, folks. I'm not looking at any

info for this. But yeah, I... I dug this. I thought

this was great. Just like, you know, when we

covered the, you know, the Raw 25 was a little

bit different, but like when we covered 365 Kevin

Owens, this is kind of similar to that. Which

I kind of find, yeah, I'll say this too, which

I kind of find amusing that with the 365 for

Owens, we kind of got the other half of it, because

we got to see Owens talking to Finn during his

rehab. And in this, we see Finn's... Yep. Side

of things. I love that. I think that's so cool

I thought it was interesting too to see because

I wasn't expecting it. I had completely forgotten

that they overlapped But I wasn't expecting to

see Seth Rollins on this of course Rollins knee

injury happens And then yeah, the guy who? accidentally

obviously injured Injured Finn ended up with

him doing rehab or another serious injury and

my big takeaway from it though is just that if

you're not a fan of Baller and For whatever reason

there's a lot of people who especially on the

internet Don't like him that kind of thing. If

you're not a fan of Baller. I feel like this

will make you one Because he really comes off

as personable and somebody you want to pull for

whether you know him or not kind of thing my

only issue with him in the beginning when i first

started seeing him on wwe programming that was

you know the main roster program was the whole

he's finn baller no he's the demon king he's

finn baller no he's like that was my issue which

i don't have that anymore because he's pretty

much dropped the demon king persona i'm sure

it's still there But it's not as prevalent as

it was. They'll pull it out for the big matches,

which is what he used to do in NXT, but yeah.

Yep. The thing about this that is interesting

is, you know, you're seeing, at least for me,

like, you know, seeing somebody that isn't from

the US or North America, like, hey, you got to

go home, you know, for the first time in years,

he went home to Ireland and just. Seeing how

his journey has happened and you know how supportive

his family is and most most of the time most

families would be supportive some would not be

but It was just very very interesting to see

how his journey collided with Seth's Collided

with Kevin's like it was just so cool When we

did 365, Kevin Owens has a point in that where

he's like, there's AJ or there's this person,

pull up next to them on the way to WrestleMania

or whatever. This has those kind of moments.

I know that obviously WWE 24 is a docu -series

that they're doing and I'm not sure why they're

doing both this and 365. I mean 365 pretty much

chronicles almost an entire year yeah it's meant

to be just a year versus 24 it's just sort of

supposed to be a moment in time I don't know

if they were I don't know if they were gonna

do maybe a 365 for Finn and then he had the injury

and so they decided to change it to make it more

about his rehab or Think maybe that's what happens

because his year kind of got derailed obviously

and as much as I hate to say it it sucks But

his careers kind of been derailed by this And

this is something I'll be saying next week folks

when we do the money in the bank episode The

biggest problem for raw superstars the raw superstars

that should be on a champ a chase for the championship

You have a champion that doesn't want to fucking

do anything. Oh, thank you. Yeah, like seriously,

it's a huge pro Everybody's in a holding pattern

because nobody can go after a belt or anything

You just got to sit around like the whole point.

All right, you're a pro wrestler You're the whole

point is that the belt is supposed to be this

thing You're chasing after because you want to

be the best you want to have the trophy that

tells you you are the best Well, what do you

do if you don't have that fucking trophy? like

Brock Brock is a great attraction and I'm not

trying to knock him Because it's it's not necessarily

his choice that this has happened, right? Like

it's his choice to not work all the dates, but

I don't know if he demanded to be champion or

not Let's assume he didn't though like they just

not having a champion or the big belt Just really

hurts the show. We'll talk about it when especially

yeah when we talk about the raw after Yeah, the

raw after money in the bank not to mention money

in the bank where by the way a whole bunch of

the belts weren't even defended Including Brock's

we don't even know it sounds like he's not gonna

show up at extreme rules either Whatever happened

to the whole like you had to defend the belt

every what was it 60 or 90 days or whatever?

Yeah, but again that you know this this goes

back to you know Why didn't they just leave the

the belt on Finn while he was injured? It's the

same thing or or or you know leave it on Owens

like have Owens win have Owens go everyone to

my knowledge and I You said it a couple episodes

ago You pay attention to all the behind -the

-scenes like all the new stuff and all the forums.

I don't I specifically do not go on wrestling

forums because I know I will end up in a six

hour argument over a wrestling jeopardy question

or something. Seriously, this is why I don't

do it. No, that was a Transformers jeopardy question.

Well, same difference. Here's the thing. This

is why I don't interact with wrestling forums

and things like that is because I don't want

to know anybody that... actively dislikes Kevin

Owens because Kevin Owens is kind of a cool guy.

Like, we did the 365 on him. We saw the behind

the scenes and how he approaches his career.

And to be fair, like, I try not to, you know,

Roman obviously gets the bulk of a lot of hate

now. And this is another problem with him, by

the way, is that Roman can't progress or anything,

because they have this thing where he's chasing

the title, but the title's not on the show 90

% of the time. so he just kind of sits there

and has these pointless feuds when we all know

they want to put the belt on him but it's just

sitting there and nobody can do anything with

it and then you have Finn Balor who's never had

a rematch for the belt even though he never lost

it exactly like there's all these issues related

to it and yeah they bring that up uh during this

as well and just i don't know like it's like

This is hurting everybody. Anyway, we should

probably get back to Finn. Yeah, but yeah, it

is hurting everybody and you guys can hear us

in a week. Talk about it even more. Point out

even more. Well, like talking about this now,

I understand why Alex aka Gravy Moose aka Charter

Treasure over at This Week in Geek doesn't want

to be on this show with us because he actively

hates what's going on with WWE. He said something

about I'm checking out of WWE, I'll check back

in once SummerSlam rolls around. Maybe the creative

will be better by then. This is the kind of stuff

I look at saying creative is not good because

you don't have a fighting champion. To be fair,

and then to be fair, the NXT creative has been

outstanding. Obviously. And they just consistently

put on amazing pay -per -views. Exactly. It's

crazy. It's just so, so crazy. So yeah, and Finn's

a guy that getting back to him Finn's a guy who

it's really hurt that there's no belt because

there's been nothing for him to fight for He's

you know for whatever reason they haven't put

him in that mix. Although part of that's because

During the time Finn was gone Strowman really

took off like basically out of nowhere the fans

and everybody got behind him and so yeah he kind

of came back and suddenly he doesn't have a sponsor

or anything and that's the you know it's one

of the big issues with injury in any sport you

know scripted or otherwise is somebody gets hurt

somebody else steps up and because of that and

because Barack's never around yet Finn never

got his rematch He's never I don't think I don't

think he's even had a match for the title Since

he came back he has not yeah, so Oops, and it's

weird. I mean like I said before If you're not

a fan of his or if you just don't like him or

that kind of thing I really feel like if you

watch this you'll end up as a fan of his like

his Positivity I find is really infectious and

he seems like a really nice guy and next to nobody

has anything Negative to say about him. Why anybody

that's worked with them has nothing at all this

negative to say about him and I mean Becky Lynch

credits her entire career to him and you know

him helping her out and that kind of thing so

Here's the thing that I would say to anyone that

thinks wrestling is fake. Okay, we've said this

before in three years. Yes, there are parts of

it that are choreographed. Yes, there are matches

that the outcomes are predetermined. However,

anyone thinks the athleticism in these matches

is faked or whatever? Watch this. Watch WWE 24

on Finn Balor because seeing what he went through...

the training, the in -ring stuff, the injury,

how, you know, how coming back from the injury,

some of the stuff that they showed in this, of

showing him with his moves and everything else,

like, wow. There's no way to fake that stuff.

Or watch a replay of Money in the Bank and watch

Kevin Owens take a fall. I think it's about the

same distance as Foley. Somebody was mentioning

this, that it's almost the exact same distance.

But Owens for some reasons not getting any real

credit for it or that kind of thing, but he fell

like 20 feet Yeah, it's crazy. It's just crazy

Onto forgiving concrete. Yeah I hope that they

Find something to do like Finn has stuff to do.

You can even put Finn up against people that

are on raw You know Don't know like we're I mean

Gallows and Anderson over on SmackDown, so you

can't do that anymore Yeah, there's no Ballard

Club. Well, you sort of teamed up with Braun

Yeah, they seem to be buddies. But yeah, he hasn't

had a lot to do and again. Yeah, it's just been

really Unfortunate Yeah, I Mean his his career

in WWE seems to be I would say the most unfortunate

in the 10 or 11 years that I've been watching

WWE actively again since 2007. There have been

things that have happened in the last 10 or 11

years with WWE, but actively seeing a superstar

that has the talent, that was the... No one else

can claim that. No one else can say they were

the first ever Universal Champion. that's his

like give him they believe it yeah they believe

in they believed in him to be the champ back

then and just since then for whatever reason

management hasn't believed in him or it's like

we said earlier they just need to have brock

there i don't know But WWE 24th on Finn Balor

go watch it folks. It's it's amazing. It's awesome

It's a fun look into in the Finns life and his

career and how he basically overcame the injury

Yeah, he's and he just like I said before he

seems like a fun guy I want to say too. I really

like the way they filmed this I mentioned it

before that they've This and the 365 series they

do have been terrific so far and they're enjoyable

to watch. I was worried that they were going

to show a lot of the surgery or it was going

to be kind of gory and that kind of thing. It

definitely wasn't, so it's well shot and it's

not just about or showing the injury or anything

like that. I don't even think, I think they might

have shown him going to the hospital. I don't

even think they showed him in the hospital. If

they did, he was like post -op. And it was like

Kevin Owens coming to see him in there or something

like that. But like, yeah. And I wouldn't think

WWE would show the surgery. They have on some

of them. I'm worried about that too with Seth's,

but they didn't show much of it. They've released

pictures though and that kind of thing where

you're kind of like, ugh, I don't need to see

that. so I know this has been a short episode

folks but these these WWE 24s and 365s are like

less than an hour so we don't want to put more

time into them than they actually are. Where

do the people find you online sir? At nightbeat.

Where? At nightbeat on Twitter. There you go.

There, happy? You can ask me wrestling questions

or whatever. Ask him transformers questions or

Star Trek questions or the expanse questions

I don't know or one of the 800 other series of

watch. Yeah, I was really happy to get a Blu

-ray box set of all six aliens movies for 20

bucks Now I'm watching that not right now obviously

well for GCRN stuff and twig stuff a lot of stuff

going on both networks we are actually preparing

I haven't said too much about this lately we're

in the midst of preparing the GCRN's top 100

wrestlers countdown so that'll be coming up later

this year number one the great Khali number two

Zeus number three No, well, I was listing bad

wrestlers. You just listed a really good one.

Ah We'll get into that on the Open of the next

show. Yeah and money in the bank for now though

folks I think as always a staple of this podcast

you gotta have the list See you next time. You

just made the list All clear