Finn Bálor Says Street Fight Stipulation Was Added To WrestleMania 42 Match Because He Had Suffered Rib Injury

Finn Balor suffered an injury going into the match.

One of the matches on the bill for WWE WrestleMania 42 was a Street Fight between Dominik Mysterio and ‘The Demon’ Finn Balor.

Before the show, the singles match was changed to a Street Fight. Balor spoke to Chris Van Vliet and revealed that the match was changed because he suffered a rib injury going into the match.

“A similar thing happened this year at WrestleMania with Dom. I had gotten beat up by the Judgment Day. I think I’d been out for a week. Dom was having a match against Penta on Raw. It’s like three weeks before Mania. I do the run-in, I come back, I beat up JD, I beat up Dom, I throw him over the top rope, and I’m in street clothes. I’m gonna do the dive over the top rope, but I’m in street clothes. So, as I’m running, I wear baggier T-shirts, and I go oh, I haven’t done the dive in a while, and I wonder, is this T-shirt gonna get snagged on the top rope, and am I gonna get stuck like Top Dolla? This was going through my head as I’m running against the ropes, so as I’m coming back I see the boys outside the ring. I said I gotta jump extra high and I gotta tuck faster than I normally tuck, because I normally kind of extend a little bit, but I tucked early and as I tucked, I popped a rib right in the air, not on the landing, or when they caught me, in the air. I popped the rib, and I remember the boys caught me, great, put me down. I stood up, I fired up like this, and I said, f*ck, I popped the rib, no! Then again, same situation, three weeks to Mania. How long does the rib take to heal? Oh, sh*t! So then now it was again just this last WrestleMania, it was race against time to get the rib. The problem with the rib recovery is you can’t do anything, there’s no rehab, you can’t do anything really. So it was kind of touch and go, and that was kind of a factor into why the match was changed to a street fight because I was able to rely more on the toys, the weapons and stuff, than have to actually, you know, wrist locks and twists and rolls and stuff like that.”

Balor is currently a part of the SmackDown brand.