Real Reason Why WWE ‘Traded’ Finn Balor To SmackDown
WWE has moved Finn Balor from RAW to SmackDown.
Balor was recently betrayed by the entire Judgment Day and removed from the group. Following the brutal betrayal, he went on to have matches against his former teammates, including Dominik Mysterio at WrestleMania 42 and his former protege JD McDonagh on RAW.
On the June 1 episode of Monday Night RAW, it was officially announced that Finn Balor had been moved from RAW to SmackDown. This announcement came after he was listed as a SmackDown star in the King of the Ring tournament brackets.
WWE moved Finn Balor to SmackDown to Close His Chapter With The Judgment Day
On a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez, Dave Meltzer revealed that WWE moved Finn Balor to SmackDown because of storyline reasons, not because of a formal WWE Draft, as they had not heard anything about an official draft decision.
WWE creative wanted to separate Finn Balor from Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh after the Judgment Day storyline ended and close the chapter. Balor has already feuded with and defeated both of them, so there wasn’t much reason for him to keep revisiting the same rivalry on RAW.
Hence, WWE decided to move him to SmackDown to give him a fresh start with new opponents, new storylines, and new opportunities.
“I never heard anything about a draft. The idea is they just want to get him away from Dominik Mysterio and JD. He beat JD, and if he stays on Raw, how does he not work with those guys? So they just figured they’re done with that—they’re done with Finn Bálor doing that—and they wanted to give him a fresh start.”
Meltzer added that WWE did the same with Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio when their feud ended. They moved Rey Mysterio to a different brand. The idea was to keep the two apart so the rivalry would feel finished rather than continuing indefinitely. Although Rey and Dominik eventually crossed paths again, the original intention was to separate them after the feud concluded.
“A lot of times they do that—they run a feud, it’s over, and the nature of the feud is they just don’t want them interacting anymore. Like when Rey Mysterio and Dominik were done, they did the same thing. They moved Rey over, and they weren’t supposed to interact—even though they are now, or about to.”