Finn Balor has looked back on a terrifying moment that occurred while portraying The Demon.
Finn Balor rarely brings out his Demon persona, usually saving it for high-profile matches, with the elaborate body paint transforming him into a far more intimidating version of himself. Applying the elaborate body paint takes around six hours. However, while competing overseas, the aftermath of one match left Balor with serious vision problems.
Balor brought The Demon back to defend his Intercontinental Championship against Andrade. While Balor had portrayed The Demon many times before, his appearance at Super ShowDown 2019 proved very different because local restrictions prevented the usual body paint from being used.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Balor first noted that something wasn’t right when he was initially being prepped for his match. His suspicions were soon confirmed, as the alcohol-based paint normally used for The Demon was not permitted in the country:
“I’ve never told this story before, either. We did the Demon in Saudi Arabia. I wrestled Andrade, and we’ve promoted the match, we fly to Saudi. I’m getting painted, this paint doesn’t feel like the normal paint. What’s going on? I asked the girl that was doing it at the time, I said, ‘Is this the normal paint? It doesn’t feel right.’ She goes, ‘Oh no. They told me I couldn’t bring the normal paint because it has alcohol in it. Alcohol is not legal here.’ I said, ‘Did anyone not think of telling me because I’m the one that has to wrestle in this?'”
To get around the issue, the former Universal Champion agreed to have his body covered in hairspray in an attempt to set the paint. While this appeared to be okay for the start of the match, the paint quickly ran, leaving little of the design intact by the end of the match:
“She goes, ‘Oh no, but I have a solution.’ What’s the solution? ‘Well, if we use hairspray all over you, it kind of sets it a little bit more.’ Okay, well, you’re an expert. So they paint me, they cover me in hairspray. It’s also Saudi Arabia outdoors, so it’s like 100 degrees. So pretty much by the time I’ve gotten to the ring, it’s starting to come off. So then we do the match, it’s a physical match, we’re sweating like crazy. I start as the demon, I end as Finn in the match. No problem. So we get through the match, no injuries, fantastic, that’s all I’m happy about.”
Finn Balor Says The Demon Face Paint Error Left Him Temporarily Blind
After the match, Balor began experiencing vision problems backstage. He said hairspray had run into his eyes, causing severe irritation and temporary blindness. His vision deteriorated to the point that, during a refuelling stop in Germany, a doctor had to leave the charter plane to obtain medication for his eyes:
“Later on in the show was Undertaker Goldberg, and I’m watching a match backstage, in a hallway. I’m like looking at the screen, and I’m like, did something hit a smoke machine in here, it felt like it was being smoked up on the entrance. But it wasn’t; it was just my eyes, because what had happened was the hairspray had ran into my eyes and burnt my retinas. I went blind; I was essentially blind where I had to be linked by the guys, brought out of the building, linked by the guys, just carried up the steps onto the charter. I couldn’t see on the flight. We landed in Germany to refuel the plane. The doc had to leave the plane, go to a chemist, get some special medicine to heal my eyes. Then we flew when we landed in San Francisco, like 15 hours later, and it was just starting to unblur. But I guess all that hairspray had irritated my iris so much that I couldn’t see. That was probably the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me in wrestling.”
Balor added that his vision gradually returned over the following 15 hours after treatment during the refuelling stop, describing the ordeal as the scariest experience of his wrestling career.
Following an extensive rivalry with The Judgment Day, Finn Balor was moved from Raw to SmackDown.
Featured image: WWE
