Finn Balor doesn’t know if the money is worth it

Finn Balor was missing from several episodes of Raw earlier this year, as well as the Royal Rumble event. His social media indicated he was simply taking time off at home in Ireland.

Balor has spent a good chunk of the last 20 years on the road and away from his family. During a recent interview on Corey Graves’ After the Bell podcast, Finn openly wondered if the physical pain and family sacrifice that he endures for pro wrestling is worth the money he’s making:

“I’ll be honest, the money is not that good for the amount of pain we go through, and being away from my family for 20 years.”

“I wrestle with myself the whole time, as to like, hey is this money worth being away from Ireland for 20 years? And in 10 years time, when my family, when people start to pass, or my friends move on, is money gonna be worth the sacrifice that I’ve given up? Not the physical sacrifice, the sacrifice of being away from your loved ones for literally 20 years. Just having phone call relationships with people, or text relationships with people that you grew up with or you love.”

“I don’t have any kids, but I’ve got 12 nieces and nephews. And I love them. [But] they know me as Finn Balor, they don’t know me as Fergal. They don’t know their uncle, the real person. They just know their uncle on TV. So I kind of wrestle with these things all the time. Is the money worth the sacrifice? Not the physical sacrifice, the life sacrifice.”

“Now I’m 40 [years old]. Hopefully I’m just halfway through my life. I hope I’ve got another 40 years left. In my mind I’m still young and I still have a lot of things that I want to do and achieve, but they’re not necessarily in wrestling. I want to spend more time in Ireland. I want to spend more time with my wife, with my parents, with my nieces and nephews.”

“Hopefully, I got another five, six, maybe seven years left in the ring. And then I’ll still have hopefully another 30 years to do other things.”

Is the money worth the sacrifice for Finn Balor? He’s definitely conflicted about the answer to that question, but it sounds to me like he is leaning towards ‘no’.