Adam Cole

Finn Balor returned to NXT following the black and yellow brand's move to USA Network and immediately became one of the biggest stars on the show.

He is a former universal and intercontinental champion and holds the record for the longest NXT Championship reign. Balor won the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic alongside Samoa Joe in 2015 and has worked with all of the biggest stars in the company.

Since joining WWE in 2014, Balor had worked as a babyface. That all changed on Wednesday's episode of NXT, when he attacked Johnny Gargano and helped The Undisputed Era to take out Tommaso Ciampa.

This is the first time the WWE Universe will get to see what he is capable of as a villain, but anybody who followed his career in New Japan Pro-Wrestling knows what kind of bad guy he can be.

With NXT struggling to match All Elite Wrestling Dynamite's ratings, Balor's heel turn is exactly what the brand needed.

A Top Heel

A few stars like Fandango, Tyler Breeze and Killian Dain have moved from the main roster to NXT, but none of them are on Balor's level in terms of star power.

When it comes to heels in NXT, The Undisputed Era is at the top of the pile, and nobody else is close to catching the faction. All of the other big stars are babyfaces.

Gargano, Ciampa, Velveteen Dream, Matt Riddle, Kushida, Breezango and Pete Dunne all identify as good guys. The black and yellow brand needed another top heel, and Balor was a perfect choice.

He can play the cocky villain well, and this will give the WWE Universe a chance to see him in a new light and find out how versatile he is.

Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, Kyle O'Reilly and Roderick Strong have been doing a good job, but they can't be the only heels competing for titles.

A Chance for Renewal

Balor is a marketable Superstar with name recognition and a loyal following, but he has struggled to get back to where he was before SummerSlam 2016.

The Demon defeated Seth Rollins to become the first universal champion that night, but he also dislocated his shoulder during the match and had to relinquish the title the next night on Raw.

He has had a few chances to regain the belt since then but has fallen short each time. He might hold victories over Superstars like Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt and Rollins, but his character has never been booked the same way since his injury.

Returning to NXT is a chance for Balor to reinvigorate his career and remind everyone why he was such a big signing for the company back in 2014.

New Opponents

Balor was on the main roster a little over three years, and it was already starting to feel like he had feuded with most of the roster.

WWE has been releasing fewer people in recent years, and Superstars are staying in NXT for longer than they need to, so the main roster tends to get repetitive.

Fresh matchups occasionally pop up, but they are few and far between, especially in the main event scene. We can only watch Reigns fight Drew McIntyre so many times in one year before the fans get sick of it.

Putting Balor back in NXT means he gets to face talents who weren't there during his first run with the brand.

His eventual fight with Gargano is going to be a work of art, and the possibility of seeing him face people like Ciampa, Velveteen Dream and Dunne should make any wrestling fan excited.

Just imagine what he could do with someone like Tyler Bate or Lio Rush. There are so many possibilities for interesting combinations and thrilling matches.

A Stable for The Demon

Balor rose to fame as the leader of The Bullet Club in NJPW in 2013. He was joined by Karl Anderson and, later, Luke Gallows in the group, but they are aligned with AJ Styles as The O.C.

The Undisputed Era reigns supreme over the black and yellow brand, with Cole holding the NXT Championship, Fish and O'Reilly the NXT tag titles and Strong the North American belt. 

If management ever decides to turn the group face or break it up, Balor is the ideal person to lead a new stable of heels.

He has the experience to be a formidable leader, the popularity to carry newer stars until they are established and the skill to make anyone else look better.

A number of rising stars could gain a lot from being associated with Balor. Cameron Grimes, Danny Burch, Oney Lorcan, Damian Priest and Mansoor could all benefit from the exposure teaming with a former world champion would bring them.

Balor's Move Makes NXT Feel Like a 3rd Brand

For as long as it has been around, NXT has been considered a developmental brand. Raw and SmackDown are on one level, and NXT is right beneath those shows.

While that is technically true, moving the show to USA, expanding it to two hours and adding a few wrestlers from the main roster has helped the show to grow into something bigger.

Despite not being in the main event scene for a little while, Balor is a bankable star. He is going to help NXT to grow, and everyone on the roster will benefit from his popularity and experience.

Putting him with Gargano for his first feud was a smart decision because they will steal the show every time they get into the ring together. If WWE wanted a program that would rival anything going on in AEW, this is it.

Finn Balor is back in NXT and is ready to "redefine" his legacy with the black-and-yellow brand. 

"I'm about to redefine and recreate my legacy," Balor told Phillip Martinez of Newsweek. "And continue to evolve and produce as much quality performances as possible."

Balor made his surprising return to Full Sail during Wednesday's broadcast, as one of two returnees to confront NXT champion Adam Cole. The other, Tommaso Ciampa, only lost the strap due to injury and could be first in line for a challenge. It's possible NXT is setting up an instant classic triple threat between three of the biggest faces in the promotion's history.

Either way, Balor seems dead-set on making an instant impact in his return to the brand that made him one of the brightest stars in WWE. Balor is still the longest-reigning champion in NXT history at 292 days.

"Right now that's what it means. I'm going to wrestle whenever, whoever I want," Balor said of whether his return to NXT is full time. "That's something I've been chasing for quite some time in my career. I don't believe in any boundaries be it weight class, country, promotion... And I want to break those boundaries. I'm here at NXT to do that."

Balor had not been seen on WWE programming since losing to The Fiend at SummerSlam, taking a much-needed break from the weekly grind. He said he's come back refreshed and thinks the move back to NXT—however permanent or temporary—will help reinvigorate him moving forward.

"I just want to continue to evolve," Balor said. "Been doing this for a long time, and sometimes when you stay in the same place for too long you get a little stagnant, you rely on your old tricks and old ways and you kind of just skate past. But there's no skating here in NXT. I have to swim for sure, because It's going to be a fight."

Odds are Balor's stay in NXT is temporary; he's a valuable commodity to the tentpole shows. But this could signal an era in WWE where talents can have extended runs in NXT, as a way of rejuvenating themselves, their characters or just having dream matches.

Finn Balor is back where his WWE career started.

After Adam Cole successfully defended the NXT Championship against Matt Riddle, Balor showed up to make a statement.

With NXT moving to USA Network and effectively being given the same treatment as Raw and SmackDown now, Triple H indicated to Newsweek's Phillip Martinez that main roster stars would move more freely to NXT.

Balor is a perfect candidate to head to Full Sail University.

The former NXT champion never enjoyed a sustained spell of success after getting drafted to Raw in 2016. He won the Universal Championship at SummerSlam 2016 but had to give up the belt a day later because of a shoulder injury.

Since then, Balor has basically tread water. He didn't get another title run until capturing the Intercontinental Championship in February. His last appearance was in a squash match at SummerSlam as Bray Wyatt made his in-ring debut as The Fiend.

Now, Balor is immediately positioned as one of NXT's top stars, and everybody can remember why they enjoyed watching him in the first place.

Adam Cole defeated Matt Riddle to retain the NXT Championship on Wednesday night on NXT TV on USA Network.

The match was a show-stopping affair that had the Full Sail crowd in an uproar, as Riddle came within milliseconds of winning his first NXT championship. 

It didn't take long for Cole's next opponent to seemingly arrive. Finn Balor made his triumphant NXT return to challenge Cole for the championship he previously held before being called up.

On last week's episode of NXT TV, Riddle defeated Killian Dain in a street fight to earn the No. 1 contendership for the NXT title.

After The King of Bros won a hard-fought battle against Dain, Cole came to the ring to talk some trash. Riddle showed how sudden and dangerous he could be by locking Cole in an armbar before getting run off by the rest of Undisputed Era.

Cole beat Johnny Gargano for the NXT title at NXT TakeOver: XXV before retaining in a 2-out-of-3 Falls match at NXT TakeOver: Toronto. With Cole in possession of the NXT Championship, the rest of Undisputed Era went to work.

Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish beat The Street Profits for the NXT Tag Team Championships on a recent episode of NXT TV, while Roderick Strong defeated Velveteen Dream for the North American Championship two weeks ago on the debut episode of NXT on USA Network.

With Undisputed Era holding all the gold, Cole entered Wednesday's show with supreme confidence, even though Riddle was perhaps the biggest threat he had ever faced.

While Undisputed Era was on its conquest for gold, Riddle was involved in a long-term feud with Dain. He lost a match to Dain before fighting him to a no-contest in a street fight and then finally beat him last week to become No. 1 contender.

Riddle is one of NXT's most skilled and popular Superstars, but he entered Wednesday's show having never held a title for the brand.

The match between Cole and Riddle was a huge deal for several reasons, including the fact that it headlined NXT's first show that went head-to-head against AEW Dynamite on TNT.

For that reason, it was of utmost importance for Cole and Riddle to deliver a memorable bout. Not surprisingly, they did and solidified the notion that NXT could be the best wrestling product in the world.

With Cole retaining, there is no end in sight to his much-deserved reign as the face of the black and yellow brand.

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