him as one of the best wrestlers in the world, and it doesn’t hurt that his character work

and appearance are also great. He’s currently in NXT, having previously been champion, but

his call up to the main roster seems imminent. I know a lot you have been waiting for this,

so here’s Wrestling Origins: Finn Balor! Fergal Devitt was born in Bray, a town in

County Wicklow, Ireland on July 25th 1981. As a young kid, around the age of four, Devitt

would spend the afternoons watching wrestling with his grandfather, and was a fan ever since.

He loved superstars like The Ultimate Warrior, Mr. Perfect, Rick Rude and Shawn Michaels,

but said he never even thought about becoming a wrestler as a kid because he was such a

small guy. Instead, Devitt would take up soccer and Gaelic

football all the way through childhood. See, wrestling isn’t the most viable career option,

so Devitt buried his passion in favour of other sports. However, as he neared the end

of his schooling, Devitt decided that despite being only 5 foot 11 and 180 pounds, he was

going to at least try to follow his dreams. Once he finished school, he went over to Kent,

England, where he joined the Hammerlock Wrestling Company. Here he would train under Andre Baker,

learning the art of catch wrestling. After training for a little while, Devitt debuted

in NWA UK Hammerlock in the year 2000 at the age of just 18, and would soon go on to win

the NWA British Commonwealth Heavyweight Championship. Once he graduated the school, Fergal would

begin touring the UK, Ireland, and even the US. By mid-2002, after gaining a nice amount

of experience Devitt opened up NWA Ireland, his very own wrestling promotion. Here Devitt

would even start training other wrestlers, most notably current WWE wrestler Becky Lynch.

Like many others, despite working in some well known promotions, Devitt also worked

in a ton of smaller ones throughout his career, sometimes even for a single match. Since I

will mainly be covering the larger, more popular ones, I’m just going to list off a bunch

of the smaller ones he worked in: Canadian Wrestling Federation, All Pro Wrestling, Fighting

Spirit Federation, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Revolution Pro Wrestling, and Westside Xtreme

Wrestling to name a few. Moving to 2005, on October 8th in Nashville,

Tennessee, Devitt would defeat Dru Onyx for his second British Commonwealth title. After

this match, both Devitt and Onyx were invited to the New Japan Inoki Dojo to train, which

is ironically in Santa Monica, California. Anyways, he would train there while also working

mainly in Millennium Wrestling Federation. Here he would impress many promoters and trainers

with his abilities, and after was even invited to train in New Japan’s main dojo in Japan.

In early 2006, Devitt packed up and headed to Japan at the age of 24, where he would

begin training in the Japanese style of wrestling. Devitt said that he was still so young when

he got to Japan and it was a huge culture shock. However, at that point, Devitt was

willing to do anything to pursue his dreams, so he had no issue with moving to a new country

to learn new techniques and train.

In March of 2006, Devitt dropped his British Commonwealth Championship to Karl Anderson.

The day after losing his belt though, Fergal signed a contract with New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Since he had already been training, it wasn’t long before he got in the ring. Fergal made

his debut in April 2006 against El Samurai, but under the new name of Prince Devitt, mainly

because the locals were flat out unable to pronounce his first name.

The next month however, Devitt began wrestling for New Japan’s Wrestle Land promotion.

This time he was wearing a mask and took on the name Pegasus Kid. Sound familiar? That’s

because Devitt was the second Pegasus Kid, as the original was Chris Benoit.

That run was relatively short lived, and soon Devitt once again began competing under his

real identity. Prince Devitt would even turn heel later that year and started teaming with

the Control Terrorism Unit, or CTU. During his time with the CTU, he would go on such

a bad losing streak that his stablemates wanted nothing to do with him. They gave him one

final chance to prove himself in October, where Devitt did just that. He won and impressed

his teammates, thus was allowed to stay with the CTU.

From there he would team up with the CTU leader Jushin Thunder Liger against Wataru Inoue

and Ryusuke Taguchi (forgive my pronunciate), where Devitt would pick up the pin fall for

the victory, cementing himself as a valuable member of the stable. However just as he was

starting to take off, Devitt suffered a knee injury which sidelined him until May of 2007.

When he returned to action Devitt competed in the Best of the Super Juniors’s Tournament,

though wasn’t able to score any points in the event, despite his stablemate Minoru claiming

Devitt would win it all. Just a quick tangent, Devitt was also competing

in other promotions as I mentioned earlier, and in June of 2007 he competed in the Reclaiming

the Glory tournament for National Wrestling Alliance. Devitt would lose in the second

round to Bryan Danielson in a match that is worth checking out.

Back to Japan, in August of 2007 CTU was disbanded and Devitt, along with Minoru, joined the

new RISE stable. If you’ve seen my Origins video on Shinsuke Nakamura, you know he was

the creator and leader of RISE. Devitt and Minoru would also become a tag team called

Prince Prince, combining Prince Devitt’s first name and the last part of Minoru’s

nickname, Black Prince. Very creative. The two would compete as a tag team when TNA

visited New Japan in November, but they would lose to Senshi and Christopher Daniels. However,

in early 2008 the team would be more successful, as Prince Prince won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight

Tag Team belts, which was Devitt’s first major title. They would however lose the belts

to Akira and Liger, but would regain them to reign for three months until losing them

again in October. Moving to 2009, Devitt entered the Best of

the Super Juniors tournament where he advanced to the finals, only to lose to Koji Kanemoto.

He would also later make it to the finals and lose the Super J-Cup as well. This year

Devitt also began teaming with Rysuke Taguchi as the team Apollo 55. The two would defeat

The Motor City Machine Guns to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships

in July of that year. The two would hold the titles and even defended them at Wrestle Kingdom

on January 4th, 2010, against Averno and Ultimo Guerrero. However, on April 21st of 2010 the

pair was stripped of their titles after they held the belts for 30 days without defending

them.

In May, Apollo 55 joined the Super J Tag Tournament in an attempt to regain the belts they never

lost, but were defeated in the finals by the team of El Samurai and Koji Kanemoto. Apollo

55 would also enter the J Sports Crown Openweight 6 Man Tag Tournament along with Hirooki Goto,

where the trio would win in the finals against the team of Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tajiri, and

Kushida. This would lead to a rematch for the Junior Heavyweight tag belts against El

Samurai and Kanemoto, which Apollo 55 won. Going back to June 2010 for a second, Devitt

earned a shot at the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title. Devitt would defeat the champion Naomichi

Marufuji (pardon my pronunciation) to win his first ever IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship.

He would successfully defend this title against Atsushi Aoki in July.

In August, Devitt entered the G1 Climax tournament, the biggest of the year. He would win four

of his seven matches in the round-robin stage, which included a win over the amazing Hiroshi

Tanahashi, but Devitt failed to qualify for the finals by just a single point.

On September 3rd, Devitt would successfully defend his singles belt for the second time

when he defeated Kenny Omega. Ironically, Omega would come back with his partner Kota

Ibushi, forming the team the Golden Lovers, in October to take the Tag Team belts from

Devitt and Taguchi. You heard me right, Golden Lovers. Don’t even get me started on their

signature move which is called the Golden Shower, but I digress.

Now without his tag belts, Prince Devitt focused on his Junior Heavyweight Championship, which

he defended against both Davey Richards and Kota Ibushi in 2011. This would be the start

of his long defence streak. Before that though, Apollo 55 would regain their tag team belts

from Omega and Ibushi, which made Devitt a double IWGP champion for the second time.

Devitt would continue defending his singles title regularly though, along with the Tag

Team belts. He would end his amazing run on June 18th at Dominion, where Devitt lost the

Junior Heavyweight Championship to Kota Ibushi after an exceptional reign of 364 days.

From there, Devitt would defend his tag belts and would break the record for the most consecutive

title defences during a single reign with seven. Shortly after, Devitt would also win

the vacant Junior Heavyweight singles belt for the second time in September of 2011.

However just a month later, Apollo 55 would drop the tag belts to the No Remorse Corps,

only to win them back and lose them once again. That would be Devitt’s sixth reign as a

tag team champion. Skipping to March of 2012, Devitt went down

to Mexico for his first tour of the country and would work in CMLL. Here he would quickly

challenge Volador Jr. for the NWA World Historic Middleweight Championship, which he won. However,

Devitt would drop his IWGP belt to Low Ki, ending his second reign at 227 days. He would

also lose the NWA title after almost exactly 6 months.

In November of 2012, Devitt defeated Low Ki to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship

for the third time. He would successfully defend this belt against Low Ki as well as

his partner Taguchi, but after Prince Devitt lost a non-title match to Tanahashi, everything

changed. Devitt became cocky and arrogant, and eventually made a crazy heel turn when

he attacked his long-time partner Taguchi in April 2013.

Now the part a lot of you have been waiting for. On May 3rd, 2013, Prince Devitt and his

new “bouncer” named Bad Luck Fale defeated the team of Taguchi and Captain New Japan.

Later that night, the duo, as well as Karl Anderson and Tama Tonga, attacked Hiroshi

Tanahashi. This new group was later named Bullet Club.

From here, Devitt would enjoy a ton of success though mostly due to outside help from Bullet

Club teammates. He would go on to win that year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament,

and following that win challenged Tanahashi. With help from the Bullet Club, Devitt defeated

Tanahashi. He would then get a shot at the Heavyweight Champion, Okada. Despite interference

from his stablemates, Okada would retain his title.

After wrapping up his rivalry with Tanahashi, Devitt focused on his Junior Heavyweight belt.

Though he had only defended it a handful of times, Devitt had held it for quite a while.

This however ended when he lost the title to Kota Ibushi in his fifth title defence,

ending his reign at 419 days. One good thing did come of this match though, as it was when

Devitt decided to wrestle in full body and face paint, which he continued to do for big

matches. Later in 2014, Taguchi returned after an injury

to attack Devitt, re-igniting the rivalry. The two would have a match on April 6th, where

everything changed for Devitt. He told Bullet Club members Matt and Nick Jackson not to

interfere in the match, which resulted in them turning on him. In the end, Taguchi defeated

Devitt. Despite the heated feud, the two would shake hands to end the rivalry after the match.

The very next day, New Japan announced that Prince Devitt had resigned from the promotion.

On May 15th, 2014, it was reported that WWE had signed Fergal Devitt and he would be joining

the NXT promotion. This was confirmed by WWE in late July, and Devitt would debut in late

September as Finn Balor. The name was derived from Irish mythology, with Balor being Gaelic

for “Demon King”. He made his debut by coming to Hideo Itami’s aid, and would have

his first WWE match in October with Itami against Justin Gabriel and Tysonn Kid.

Balor would soon win a shot at the NXT Championship, but was unsuccessful in his match against

Kevin Owens in March. He would get another shot in July, this time in Tokyo, where he

would defeat Owens for the NXT Championship. Balor would soon be paired with Samoa Joe

for the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and won, though Joe would turn on him soon after.

This led to a title match where Balor defeated Joe to retain his belt. He would also retain

in a rematch on April 1st, 2016, but finally lost it to Joe after 292 days, a record reign.

Most recently, Finn Balor squared off with Shinsuke Nakamura, and despite losing, both

were given a standing ovation as fans chanted “Thank You Finn”, as it may have been

his very last match on NXT. And that’s it, Wrestling Origins: Finn Balor.

I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did I’d appreciate you giving it a like and subscribing

to make sure you catch another episode of Wrestling Origins next Friday. As always,

thanks for watching!