Finn Balor’s WrestleMania 42 Street Fight with Dominik Mysterio looked violent by design, but it turns out there was a very real reason WWE went that route.
While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Balor revealed he suffered a rib injury just weeks before WrestleMania during a RAW run-in involving Dominik, JD McDonagh, and Penta. Balor said he was in street clothes, went for a dive over the top rope, and knew immediately something had gone wrong.
“Dom was having a match against Penta on Raw three weeks before Mania. I did the run-in, I beat up JD and Dom, and I threw them over the top rope. I’m in street clothes, but I’m gonna do a dive over the top rope.”
Balor said the mistake happened mid-dive, when he started overthinking whether his baggy shirt would catch on the rope. That made him change how he jumped.
“As I’m running — I’m wearing a baggy T-shirt — I’m like, ‘Oh, I haven’t done the dive in a while, and I wonder, is this T-shirt gonna get snagged on the top rope, and am I gonna get stuck like Top Dolla?’ I tucked early, and as I tucked, I popped a rib in the air. I remember the boys caught me and put me down. I stood up and said, ‘F***! I popped a rib!’”
That put Balor in a rough spot. WrestleMania was only a few weeks away, and rib injuries are not exactly easy to speed through. There is no real rehab shortcut, so Balor said it became a race against time.
“Now it was, again, a race against time to get the rib healed. The problem with rib recovery is you can’t do anything. No rehab. So it was kind of touch and go.”
That is where the Street Fight stipulation suddenly makes a lot more sense. Balor said the match was changed so he could use weapons and smoke-and-mirrors instead of having to wrestle a normal match while dealing with the injury.
“That was kind of a factor as to why the match was changed to a Street Fight because I was able to rely on the weapons more than have to actually wrist-lock, twist, and roll.”
He still made it to WrestleMania and beat Dominik, but he wasn’t pretending he was anywhere near 100 percent:“I wrestled hurt, but everyone wrestles hurt.”
That makes the match look a little different now. Fans saw The Demon return, Dominik get thrown into chairs and tables, and Balor finish him off with a Coup de Grace through a table. Behind the scenes, Balor was just trying to get through the biggest show of the year with a bad rib.
Balor still got the win, but now fans know the Street Fight was not just there to make the feud feel bigger. It was also there because Finn Balor had to find a way to survive WrestleMania while hurt.
Do you think Finn Balor’s injury makes his WrestleMania 42 win over Dominik Mysterio even more impressive? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
