The Official UKFF RAW Thread...

[Porkchopcash]

You cant really have druids carrying out a coffin at Wrestlemania and Fin Balor stepping out of it. People for some strange reason may expect someone else.

[Devon Malcolm]

14 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

That’s how you do Demon right. 

You don't see the gimmick infringement issues there, then?

[BomberPat]

The Demon should be to Balor what The Great Muta is to Keiji Mutoh; identifiably the same bloke, but with enough difference to feel like a distinct character, and important when they show up. Outside of his entrance, Balor moves and wrestles no differently as the Demon - his supposedly more powerful, more aggressive, less controllable alter-ego. They've given no real indication as to why "Demon Balor" is even necessary - particularly against a bloke he's already beaten.

[TildeGuy~!]

8 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

You don't see the gimmick infringement issues there, then?

It was just an example, he has loads of other different entrances as the demon over there.

 

[Loki]

3 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Balor moves and wrestles no differently as the Demon

This has always been my issue with the whole concept.  He comes out, looks cool with the medusa head of leather straps or whatever, then he takes it off and wrestles exactly the same as Blue Oyster Balor.  So all the "demon king / his dark side" stuff just falls flat.

I'd genuinely rather he played a wrestling version of Papa Lazarou, as a completely different character with a different style.  But then Balor is one of those wrestlers who I just don't "get".  He elicits so little emotional response from me in his matches that I struggle to remember a single one.  He puts in so much effort for so little interest for me.

 

[tiger_rick]

38 minutes ago, Loki said:

This has always been my issue with the whole concept.  He comes out, looks cool with the medusa head of leather straps or whatever, then he takes it off and wrestles exactly the same as Blue Oyster Balor.  So all the "demon king / his dark side" stuff just falls flat.

I'd genuinely rather he played a wrestling version of Papa Lazarou, as a completely different character with a different style.  But then Balor is one of those wrestlers who I just don't "get".  He elicits so little emotional response from me in his matches that I struggle to remember a single one.  He puts in so much effort for so little interest for me.

Completely agree with the first paragraph and wholeheartedly disagree with the second. I love this place.

[PunkStep]

2 hours ago, TildeGuy~! said:

It was just an example, he has loads of other different entrances as the demon over there.

 

Yes, but what happened once the bell rang? He was just Prince Devitt, wasn't he?

Was the word 'demon' even thrown about in Japan and on the indies or is that WWE trying to make sense of why he sometimes dresses up as comic book characters during his entrance? Because that's what it has always felt like. There was no demon character until WWE- he was the cool, cocky Bullet Club guy that dressed up for entrances. But that's commonplace with big Japanese shows anyway isn't it? Kenny Omega will turn up as The Terminator at Wrestle Kingdom for some reason etc.

It seems WWE saw his entrances and thought 'wow they look pretty cool, we need to get him to use them now and then, could really shift some merch to the kids- BUT we need to somehow integrate it into a character of sorts'. Which is precisely what they have done- although without the best execution. But then again, how the fuck do you make it work?? Taker worked mainly because of the cartoon-era he arrived into. Wyatt has proved that kind of hokey shit comes across terribly these days. Broken Matt Hardy worked because it was essentially a comedy gimmick.

Edited April 4, 2019 by PunkStep

[BomberPat]

He was never "the Demon" outside of WWE. The persona was briefly "The Demon King" in NXT (or maybe when he first debuted on the main roster?), but was changed presumably because it was too similar to "The Demon Kane".

Him getting painted up as Venom for NJPW was just a big entrance for Wrestle Kingdom, and led to him doing the cosplay gimmick when he got booked elsewhere, because it caught on and other promotions wanted a piece of it. The last time I saw him live, he was dressed up as Bane for RevPro.

Because he started doing the cosplay gimmick right around the time there was the most pre-WWE hype around him, I guess a lot of people figured that was what he was all about, so NXT/WWE had to figure out a way to capitalise on it without using pre-existing characters, and we ended up with the Demon.

It was never great in NXT, but at least they established that it wasn't an actual demon, just a side of himself he tapped into to channel his creativity and his anger into a more aggressive performance. That his performance wasn't noticeably all that more aggressive was the problem.

As soon as it became a main roster thing, though, they couldn't help but take things literally and make it a hokey actual demon - though still no different from normal Finn Balor in any distinguishable sense (with the exception of his match with Baron Corbin, where he at least tried) - and gave it some kind of fictional backstory and nonsense. It's the worst. 

The best thing it ever gave us was Michael Cole dramatically referring to Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor as a "Man vs. Man Match".

[The Gaffer]

 

Either way, he looks like a right creepy BDSM sub, on his knees in front of everybody else on the official WrestleMania poster. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

Lashley and Balor making that poster is an utter travesty.

[tiger_rick]

It'd be a bit BNP without Lashley. Balor's ace. You're talking bollocks there. Bryan should be on it too but otherwise, nothing wrong with it.

[Supremo]

That Summerslam match with Corbin is how The Demon should always wrestle. If he shows up in the paint, you know he's going to wreck someone in minutes. It's an easy pay-off to a feud. He gets pushed and pushed until he snaps like The Hulk and just murders them. Ideally, I'd love him to act like he has no memory of it afterwards. Netheir Finn or the writing crew are able to handle the transformation  in a way that isn't hokey or embarrassing.

[Slapnut]

35 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

It'd be a bit BNP without Lashley.

Could have stuck Kofi on there in that case.

[tiger_rick]

2 minutes ago, Slapnut said:

Could have stuck Kofi on there in that case.

Yeah, fair enough. Wasn't sure when I posted when they produced this as Kofi was last minute but thinking about it, Demon was later.

[d-d-d-dAz]

40 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

It'd be a bit BNP without Lashley. Balor's ace. You're talking bollocks there. Bryan should be on it too but otherwise, nothing wrong with it.

Bryan, Kofi, Triple H, Batista, AJ Styles, The Miz, Samoa Joe... even Kurt Angle.

There were options, is all I’m saying.

The lack of Batista on any of the promotional materials does make me think that whole deal came together late.

Also, Balor is crap. I don’t know whether it’s a new thing, or whether I’ve just realized, but his whole act is like someone made life a child’s action figure as they played with it. Nothing is connected to anything else, it just happens.

If the Lego Movie was about Hasbros, Finn would be Emmett.