Finn Balor recently appeared as a guest on the “What’s Your Story with Steph McMahon” podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling and WWE.
During the discussion, the WWE veteran admits he still gets nervous doing promos, and advice that was given to him by Paul Heyman.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete audio archive of the discussion.
On getting nervous doing WWE promos: “That’s another thing that’s been really difficult for me in my career is that trash talking and I’m not willing to sacrifice my dignity to say these things that I don’t mean right, because, and again, I know it would be better. I feel like I got to this position being myself, so I shouldn’t change that ever. And I kind of, I started in England where it was mostly based on mat wrestling. And then I went to Japan and it was based on strong style wrestling. It was not promos. The first time I actually had to do a promo was when I came to NXT. And I remember being so nervous because the NXT tape and 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 right.I’m in flow. I’m just 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.”
On advice given to him by Paul Heyman: “And one thing I’ve kind of only started to learn recently, and I’ll credit Paul Heyman with this, because he said you got to treat your promos like your matches, like you’re not nervous going into your match. You don’t know every move you’re going to do. You’re just flowing and you’re there and you’re in that state. But your promos, you’re trying to memorize every word.That’s not how you execute your matches.That’s not how you should execute your promos. So recently I’ve kind of been taking that more on board.”
