#3 A match against Samoa Joe
If Finn Balor does wrestle in a singles match instead of being allocated to the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, the only logical opponent for him is Samoa Joe, who at this point doesn’t have a match set in stone for him and would be a big enough star to justify having the two of them clash and the fans actually caring about it.
Sure, the match has been done before, which takes away a lot of the fun, but it’s important to keep in mind that not every WWE fan watches NXT. For many people, this would be the first time they’d ever see the two of them in the ring together. For others, they might have just enjoyed their matches enough to want to see another one anyway.
Before Balor made his return at the live event, it looked like Sami Zayn was pencilled in as Samoa Joe’s opponent for WrestleMania, which is an adequate match for a card like Fastlane but wasn’t even the original plan for that, either. When it comes to WrestleMania, it’s certainly not going to turn any heads—especially considering how it just happened a few weeks prior.
That match would be in danger of being cut from the card or at least bumped to the pre-show, but the return of Finn Balor going up against Raw’s resident hitman could make enough waves to find its spot on the main card even while WrestleMania is filling up beyond capacity.
The story is easy: he and Joe have unfinished business from NXT, Joe is a villain who is attacking people and Balor is a hero who will come out to help save the day. That’s all it takes to set this match up, and it might actually be a method to build more toward another segment as well...
