Finn Balor Says He Was Injured Less Than A Month Before WWE WrestleMania

Finn Balor had a featured match at WrestleMania 39 as he battled Edge in a Hell in a Cell match to conclude their year-long story. It was Balor's first WrestleMania match since 2019, and it turns out that he was in jeopardy of missing the Hollywood event as well.

In a new Instagram post, Balor revealed that he sustained a grade two calf tear during the March 10 episode of "WWE SmackDown" when The Judgment Day defeated Legado del Fantasma in a six-man tag bout. Balor explained that the normal recovery time is six to eight weeks, however, to that he said, "Hold my beer." Within three weeks, WWE's medical team helped him endure long rehab days to the point that he was cleared just a day or two before the event.

The 42-year-old expressed his gratitude to the medical staff, as well as his wife who told him, "This injury has been the Demon of your career, and you need to overcome this Demon to release YOUR DEMON at WrestleMania." Balor did indeed don his Demon gimmick for the bout, which may or may not have helped him endure another injury that occurred in the ring on April 2. When Edge launched a ladder at Balor, he suffered a nasty gash on his forehead. Their match was briefly stopped so that the medical team could staple him up in order for them to continue.

Despite beating the odds stacked against him physically, Balor came up short to Edge after an 18-minute battle inside the steel structure. The leader of The Judgment Day has yet to make a televised appearance since then, although his stablemates Rhea Ripley, Dominik Mysterio, and Damian Priest are all advertised for tonight's "SmackDown" in Portland.