Finn Balor made his return to the main roster in July after his second successful stint in NXT came to an end. Since then, he has challenged Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship and made it to the finals of the King of the Ring tournament.
Balor's second run in NXT helped revitalize his WWE career, as he adorned the 'Prince' persona and performed with more of an edge than ever before in the company. However, since he's returned to the main roster, Balor has reverted to his former self, which primarily involves him performing as the 'Demon'.
Hopefully, WWE can make the most of Balor's transition to Raw, but at least fans can reminisce about Finn's two great runs with the NXT Championship. In fact, his runs with the title were so good that he should be considered the best NXT Champion of all time.
Making The Case For Balor Being The Best NXT Champion
There was a great deal of hype surrounding Balor's signing with NXT in 2014 as one of the brand's biggest free-agent signings to that point, and the company made sure to capitalize on his buzz. Balor was immediately positioned as a top asset, defeating the likes of Neville, Hideo Itami, and Tyler Breeze in the process.
After defeating Kevin Owens for the NXT Championship, Balor would go on to have one of the most memorable runs during one of NXT's best periods throughout 2015/16. His feud with Samoa Joe is one of the brand's best-ever rivalries, which spawned a number of great matches that further legitimized the NXT Championship as one of the most important prizes in wrestling.
Balor would leave for the main roster in 2016, but failed to have a starring role on either Raw or SmackDown, which prompted his return to NXT in 2019. His heel turn was one of the early highlights of the 'Wednesday Night Wars' and Balor would go on to have great matches with the likes of Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano, Damian Priest, and Timothy Thatcher, before winning the NXT Championship for a second time.
Despite it being a rough time for NXT, Balor shone in his matches as champion, particularly in his matches with Kyle O'Reilly, which cemented his claim to being the best champion in the brand's history.
Whittling Out The Field Of Other NXT Champions
Before NXT (arguably) hit its peak in 2015/16, championship runs by Seth Rollins, Big E, Neville, and especially Bo Dallas were memorable, but aren't really in the same conversation as Balor's reigns. However, this period of NXT was vitally important for attracting talent like Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe, and Finn Balor to the brand, so it deserves a lot of credit for that.
Other NXT Champions didn't hold the belt for a long time, but were still great in their own right. Sami Zayn and Shinsuke Nakamura both had epic feuds over the title with Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe respectively, but were unfortunate not to have longer tenures with the belt. More recently, Johnny Gargano and Keith Lee have held the title for a very short time, where their reigns peaked with the title win.
During 2017/18, NXT transitioned its focus quite significantly from thoughtful storytelling to in-ring action, as main-roster call-ups seemingly became more frequent. During this time, there were some great champions who had some brilliant matches, such as Drew McIntyre, Andrade, and Aleister Black. Despite not being quite as good in-ring, Bobby Roode's reign as NXT Champion might be one of the most underrated, as his 'Glorious' heel gimmick was so over with the fans.
It would be careless not to point out that Karrion Kross was also NXT Champion, but he will comfortably go down as the worst of the bunch.
Other Contenders For Top NXT Champion
As previously mentioned, NXT was at its best throughout 2015/16, which was largely due to the champions who reigned throughout this period. Kevin Owens had one of the best debuts in the brand's history, turning on his best friend Sami Zayn to win the title, before engaging in a heated feud with Balor himself.
Balor would lose the title to Samoa Joe at a house show, which was an ingenious storyline development that shocked fans. He would then defend the title against Balor again, becoming the first man to defeat the 'Demon' in WWE, before regaining the title a second time in his feud with Shinsuke Nakamura. Sadly, Joe's third title reign wasn't the comeback fans hoped for.
The two other more recent contenders to Balor's claim of being the best NXT Champion are Tommasso Ciampa and Adam Cole. Ciampa is now in his second reign with the title, but his first gave him more than a decent claim to being the best NXT Champion. As the 'Goldie' obsessed sociopath, Ciampa had a legendary feud with his former partner Johnny Gargano, even if the rivalry did lose its way somewhat in the end.
Adam Cole is the longest-reigning NXT Champion of all time and he too had a fantastic string of matches with Gargano, as well as Pete Dunne, Riddle, and Keith Lee.
Despite all these great champions having graced NXT, Balor stands above the rest for putting together two unique, but equally awesome title reigns. Whether he is the 'Prince' or the 'Demon,' Balor deserves to be recognised as the best NXT Champion of all time.