Finn Balor emerging as a candidate to win 2016 Royal Rumble
Current NXT champion Finn Balor has been a major topic of conversation among WWE fans of late due to news breaking that WWE had signed New Japan Pro Wrestling stars Shinsuke Nakamura, AJ Styles, Doc Gallows, and Karl Anderson, as many believe that WWE is bringing them in to form a new faction in the company – which will be known as the Balor Club.
Of course, the Balor Club will be a complete copy of the Bullet Club, which has been a staple in New Japan Pro Wrestling since May of 2013, when Finn Balor, who was known at the time as Prince Devitt, formed the faction by turning on Ryusuke Taguchi, and teaming with Karl Anderson, Bad Luck Fale, and Tama Tonga to form the faction.
The Bullet Club has gone through many incarnations since its formation in 2013. including the replacement of Prince Devitt, who left NJPW for NXT in 2014, with AJ Styles, who was thrown out of the group soon after news broke that he was heading to WWE.
WWE's Balor Club will presumably include all of the NJPW signees – with the exception of AJ Styles – who will reportedly not be involved with the group upon his debut, which will likely be as a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble match on January 24.
Finn Balor may also be a surprise entrant in the 2016 Royal Rumble match, according to Inquisitr, and, on top of that, the NXT champ is emerging as a dark horse to win the match, which would ensure that he makes an impact upon his main roster debut, and that the Balor Club gets off to a hot start.
There are some issues with the rumor that Balor will win the Royal Rumble match.
One of them is that he would be crowned the new WWE world heavyweight champion, and while that would almost certainly be a great way to bring Balor up to the main roster, it seems a bit far-fetched, as Balor is the current NXT champion, and it's unlikely that he would hold both of the titles at the same time.
The second issue with Balor winning the Royal Rumble is that WWE is dead-set on Roman Reigns going into WrestleMania 32 as the WWE world heavyweight champion. Now, that could change in the next couple of weeks as we gear up for the Royal Rumble pay-per-view.
But, for now, WWE wants to keep the belt on Reigns for quite a while, and it's likely that he'll be defending it against either Triple H or Brock Lesnar on WWE's grandest stage this coming spring.
While Balor winning the Royal Rumble seems unlikely, WWE is planning on forming a Balor Club faction at some point in the near future, as they were able to successfully file a trademark for the Balor Club name recently.
So, while Balor may be a dark horse candidate to win the Royal Rumble, don't expect it to happen, unless he ends up dropping the NXT title in the next couple of weeks.