WWE: Is Finn Balor’s quick loss hinting at a future internal character crisis?

On the episode of WWE Raw after Extreme Rules, Finn Balor lost in mere seconds to Samoa Joe. Could this loss hint at a future identity criss for a wrestler who has long been in need of a character change?

Finn Balor is one of WWE’s most talented upper mid-card babyface, and wrestlers who fit this profile rarely ever get squashed by wrestlers who are 0-8 in world title matches. However, it only took about 15 seconds for Samoa Joe to take care of business on the episode of Raw after Extreme Rules against Balor, defeating the former Universal Champion as if he were a mere local talent.

It was an almost unprecedented loss for Balor, and it was even more surprising than his loss at Extreme Rules. To refresh, Balor lost the Intercontinental Championship to Shinsuke Nakamura on the pre-show of Extreme Rules in a match that was a late addition to the card. Furthering this, Balor had already lost to Nakamura on the go-home episode of SmackDown prior to the Pay Per View in Philadelphia.

Joe himself had a down night at Extreme Rules in the win-loss column, too, falling to Kofi Kingston in a very good WWE Championship match. But his loss was far less surprising, as Kofi is on fire and looks set to hold the title for a very long time.

So both Finn and Joe headed into the Raw after the PPV needing a little bit of a bounce back. And while Balor did get the better of Joe when the latter tried to start a post-match beatdown, it was still jarring to see Finn lose so quickly.

There’s a report from Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin stating that Balor requested time off from WWE, and this was somewhat corroborated during Raw when Corey Graves announced that Balor may need to take some time to reflect after these losses.

It appears he’ll have some help in the reflection process.

After the loss, Balor sauntered around the ring celebrating with his music playing – why he was celebrating after losing, I don’t know –  and the lights went out. Then, there was Bray Wyatt as “The Fiend,” making his return to the ring after hosting the acclaimed children’s show “Firefly Fun House”.

Wyatt and Balor had a SummerSlam match two weeks ago, in which Balor defeated Wyatt with relative ease as “The Demon” during a doomed feud. It appears the two could have a much better rivalry for SummerSlam 2019, and if Balor takes time off after the show, it stands to reason that he could lose to Wyatt.

But that might not be such a bad thing. Because a loss to the most twisted, sinister version of Wyatt yet could set something off within Balor. WWE fans have long awaited a Balor heel turn after seeing his devilish antics in NJPW, and Wyatt could either be a catalyst to Balor embracing his inner “Demon” or regressing back to being a sniveling jerk by joining up with the reformed “Club”.

Of course, this is a lot of prognostication following one 10-15 second squash loss on Raw. But when a resilient wrestler like Balor who is usually booked strongly as a babyface loses like this, it raises eyebrows.

As long as something big ends up coming from this, that could be a good thing. We’ve heard Paul Heyman speak highly of Balor in the past, such as in the build up to his Royal Rumble Universal Title match against Brock Lesnar, so perhaps the ECW creator has something special planned for Balor in the long run.

You know, after some careful reflection has taken place…