It's time for Finn Balor to expand his character

[Messiah]

I'm a huge fan of Balor. Out of everyone in NXT, I think he has the best chance to become a star in the WWE once he's brought up. He's extremely marketable. His Demon persona and entrance is unique. He's a great performer. While he isn't a great or even good talker, it's easy to work around that, especially considering his Demon gimmick.

Unfortunately, therein lies the issue. That is what Balor is all about at this point, which wouldn't be a bad thing except that is a once in a couple of months kind of thing. Even if he were on the main roster, we're still only talking once a month. I have no problem with that because I don't want the special feeling you get when he enters the arena with his body paint to become nonexistent due to it happening every week. However, Balor's character needs to grow beyond that. We don't have much of a reason to invest in him beyond that. If you're not going to do that, then at least put him in a meaningful storyline. For the second time, Balor is the #1 contender for the NXT Championship and yet, he has taken a backseat to everyone and everything. He hasn't had a rivalry yet (hell, Riley spent more time feuding with Owens than Balor did) since the whole Ascension saga. The only thing he seems to do is win at PPVs and then make a couple of NXT appearances now and again. They haven't done anything meaningful with him.

A lot of that has to do with the 1 hour time constraint. They don't have a lot of time to develop much of a story outside of the titles. They could still do a lot better than they are doing though.

[Hanley!]

They don't have time to feature everyone on their shows, due to them only being an hour long. But they absolutely have enough time to do something productive with those that they do feature. To develop their characters, to put them in meaningful feuds and stories. Their failure to do so with Balor (and a lot of their other talents) is a failure on the company's part that does not relate to the amount of time allotted for the shows.

It is time for Balor to develop more. Or more accurately that time was months ago. He's still over, because he's a good wrestler with a fantastic theme, and when he does put on the war paint he has the best entrance in the company. But unfortunately, that's only going to happen once every couple of months and outside of that he's actually quite boring. There's nothing that stands out about him. He doesn't actually have a character or personality. Finn Balor is just a gimmick. And unfortunately it's a gimmick he can only use once every couple of months.

He's weak on the microphone, very weak actually. But with a good in-ring performer, you can work around that. What they need to do is put him in an actual story that people can invest in. Give him some tangible qualities as a character. They can do this without having him talk at all. Give fans something to sink their teeth into with this guy, because right now his positives are mostly surface-level and there's not much meat to his character.

WWE are bad for this in general, with a bunch of their characters lacking real personalities, and even more lacking a feud that has any kind of story. Just scheduling two guys in a match against each other does not make a compelling feud. There needs to be more detail than that. We need to know what the personalities involved think of each other. What the dynamic is between the two. And what's at stake for both of them on a very personal level. NXT is doing that for very few of their characters at the moment, and it's getting quite frustrating. Balor has suffered from this more than most.

[Kirbi]

I think he needs to be looking to people like Samoa Joe, Undertaker, Bobby Roode, and Awesome Kong in working intimidation tactics into his gimmick for the weekly shows. - Given the demon thing, and how cool and creepy he looks when he pulls it out, I think his regular personality should reflect it more.

Obviously, I'm hoping that the presence of Joe in the company now could help with this. Balor won't need to duplicate anyone's manner, but he should feel around for one that works for him.

And yes, they really need to do this - it's past time for it.

[JPG619]

I'm a huge fan of Balor. Out of everyone in NXT, I think he has the best chance to become a star in the WWE once he's brought up. He's extremely marketable. His Demon persona and entrance is unique. He's a great performer. While he isn't a great or even good talker, it's easy to work around that, especially considering his Demon gimmick.

...

He does have a chance to be a star however I hope they don't rush him into the main roster since in no time he will find himself sitting on the sidelines with no work.

The easiest way to build him up is to up NXT to two hours. That can double the matches and since WWE Network don't have commercials they can easily fit in 4 matches on the card