WWE Raw: The Finn Balor, Vince McMahon Dynamic

At the Royal Rumble Pay Per View, Finn Balor will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conquer The Beast Incarnate, Brock Lesnar, in a Universal Championship match, and Vince McMahon’s key role in this story on WWE Raw cannot be overlooked.

Finn Balor didn’t seem to be the original plan for Brock Lesnar’s Universal Championship opponent at Sunday’s Royal Rumble PPV. No, Braun Strowman was the WWE Raw superstar ticketed for a big match against Lesnar, who already defeated Strowman at No Mercy in 2017 and at Crown Jewel last year. Strowman, however, is still recovering from a real-life elbow injury and, therefore, was unable to compete.

So last week on Raw, Balor defeated Jinder Mahal in singles competition and then pinned 16-time champion John Cena, who would give Balor some heartfelt words of encouragement post-match, in a main event Fatal Four-Way to become Lesnar’s next opponent.

Though the WWE Universe – including Cena – believes in Balor, Vince McMahon, the on-screen character, clearly does not. After initially being skeptical of Finn’s chances against three bigger men, Vince allowed Jinder to face Balor in a match before the main event, theoretically cutting Balor’s chances of winning later that night by a significant margin.

And this week on WWE Raw, Vince made it clear that he doesn’t see Finn, who is listed as nearly 100 pounds lighter than The Beast, as a legit threat to the Universal Championship. He even told his own version of the “David and Goliath” story, which Balor would later correct before getting the jump on Strowman and Lesnar, who caused a DQ finish by F5’ing Finn just when it seemed like Balor would pull off the victory.

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Vince’s role in this underdog story is incredibly interesting, because we haven’t seen him this involved in a world title storyline in years. Yes, he appeared on SmackDown Live one night later and got ethered by Daniel Bryan on the mic, but in the Finn vs. Brock matchup, Vince is playing a much more forceful role as Finn’s harshest critic.

All of this comes at a time when Vince is a more active presence on the main roster in an effort to show the fans that he’s more serious about their attention and building a product that actually caters to them. Finn, a fan favorite whom even Brock has reportedly wanted to work with for some time, certainly fits the bill as the type of wrestler many people would like to see upset Brock, though others, of course, would voice their displeasure if Finn were to pull off the win; there are always differences of opinion in wrestling.

Still, Mr. McMahon’s interjection in this feud make it seem even more special, and while it isn’t enough to say that Balor will win, his involvement does seem to increase the likelihood of Finn pulling off the unexpected. Despite stating that he won’t appear as “The Demon”, we won’t know the truth until Sunday, which is another interesting layer to this matchup.

On-screen, Vince is quite clearly Finn’s harshest critic, because even Paul Heyman had kind words to say about Finn; his spoiler that Balor will lose had, as usual, far more to do with his thoughts on “The Beast”.

But while many fans openly wonder if Vince is truly lower on Finn than everyone else, given Dave Meltzer’s infamous report that he wasn’t deemed “over” enough to face Brock last year, Balor was the first-ever Universal Champion for a reason. And if Finn was just another opponent for Brock to run through with relative ease, why would Vince play the role of the teacher from Frindle in his feud?

Win or lose – and despite how much we believe, we’re all prepared for the latter outcome on Sunday – Finn Balor is a made man in 2019. His work has long been applauded, and WWE has indeed been giving Finn his rumored push, cementing his rise with his pin of Cena after losing to the 16-time champ last winter. A heroic loss against Brock, who has put together classic matches with other “smaller” opponents in back-to-back years (AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan), would certainly help Finn.

But Vince’s intriguing role in this “David and Goliath” story could be a hint that the impossible may be in the cards on Sunday, and this dynamic between “CEO” (I refuse to call him the boss, because that’s Sasha Banks) and “Demon”  makes this Universal Title match all the more nerve-wracking in the best way possible.