“You know who I am.” These words, spoken by Finn Balor to Bronn Breaker in his much-anticipated return to NXT, could hardly be heard over the cheers of a crowd very much excited to see the longest-reigning champion in the brand’s history return to their television screens.

“And I’m also the guy who's held that title for more days than anyone. I made that title the industry standard for who is the best, and now, it’s your responsibility to uphold that lineage. But I like you, Bron, so I’m going to give you a little piece of advice; I’ve beaten guys twice as big as me, so on Sunday, don’t underestimate the moment, and don’t underestimate your opponent.”

Now granted, by the end of the episode, this interaction wasn't some marquee thing that stood along as a paradigm shift, but instead a fantastic brick in a wall of NXT-themed cameos that featured everyone from Pete “Butch” Dunn to Tommaso Ciampa, but it did mark the first time Balor has been back in the brand he helped to break since all the way back in May of 2021, when he lost the NXT Championship to Karrion Kross in real “changing-of-the-guard” moment that was supposed to launch the new star's status #tothemoon.

Since then, Balor has bounded around various angles on RAW, teaming with A.J. Styles in a quasi-Bullet Club reunion, dropping an incredibly unfortunate bout to Roman Reigns via rings ropes snapping that totally put a damper on his “Demon” character, and eventually usurping Edge as the leader of Judgement Day. While some of these angles have worked, it's clear none have quite lived up to the main roster hype Balor had back in 2016 when he won the Universal Championship, let alone his incredible first and even second runs in NXT from 2014-16 and again from 2019-21.

Even if Judgement Day is ultimately able to overcome its current downward spiral, maybe via a heel turn from Dominik Mysterio that shakes up their feud with Edge and Rey, fans will forever compare anything Balor does to his time in NXT and that, unfortunately, is a pretty tough bar to clear.

Well, what if I were to tell you that Balor almost had a third run in NXT; one where he would have been the focal point of NXT UK? Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, guess what? According to the man himself via an interview with Ryan Satin on the Out of Character podcast, that almost happened but was ultimately dashed due to a variety of different reasons, both financial and career-based.

A Finn Balor's second NXT run could have been a 2-for-1.

When Balor dropped the strap in NXT to Kross, it felt like a logical way to write him off of the promotion. He came, he saw, he kicked some behind, and after a 212-day run that brought his total time with the strap to 504 days, Balor was ready for a new challenge.

Ultimately, that ended up being a program with Roman Reigns that was very good until about two minutes before the end of their match at Extreme Rules, but per the man himself on Out of Character via a transcription from Wrestle Talk, his next destination was almost back to the United Kingdom, where he presumably would have worked a very similar program with the fine performers in NXT UK.

“I wasn’t super excited about the idea of returning to the main roster. I felt there was potential for me to perform in NXT UK and work with those guys and that was something I was super interested in.

“I pitched the idea to Hunter at the time and they were interested in it, but they were going to have to renegotiate my contract and all because of budget restrictions and it was just going to prove too difficult and maybe wasn’t a smart move career-wise at this age.

“I’ve become very aware of that and there might be a clock starting to tick right now. I’m more aware of that now than I was five years ago. I thought, ‘Well, I need to get on a good run on the main roster.’ They came up with the idea of coming back and working a program with Roman and you can’t turn that down.

“It was a no-brainer. We started off hot, kind of dipped down a little bit, and I feel it’s starting to warm up a little bit again. I’m excited.”

Goodness, could you even imagine Balor throwing down with Walter-now-Gunther in a prolonged program for the NXT UK Championship? Or what about matches against cruiserweights like Tyler Bate and Dunne? I don't know about you, but I'd rather watch that run over Balor's Extreme Rules burial any day of the week.