FINALLY, FINLAY!
After 30 Years, An Overnight Success!

By C.F. Hunter

The luck of the Irish? Malarkey! Luck has absolutely nothing to do with Finlay’s ascension to the upper echelon of professional wrestling. Anyone who claims that Finlay’s main-event status came by a fluke is liable to have an unfortunate run-in with the business end of a shillelagh.

If any man on the WWE roster epitomizes the importance of hard work and dogged persistence, it’s the fighting Irishman who, at age 49, is on the hottest run of his career and shows no sign of losing momentum.

But how has David Finlay—a squat, no-nonsense journeyman who many observers thought had peaked during his WCW stint more than a decade ago—managed to so successfully assert himself in a world dominated by bigger and younger men?

“He’s a mule!” barks Johnny “Catcher” Harris, a long-retired British wrestler who lost a number of matches to Finlay around Liverpool and Manchester in the late-1970s. “Yeah, a mule, stubborn like you wouldn’t believe. I had that bloody Irishman in a legscissors for 25 minutes straight one night and the stubborn bugger wouldn’t give. I cracked his rib and the bastard just winked and started bashin’ my knees until I cried uncle. And that’s when he was a bleedin’ rookie!”

As the son of a wrestling promoter, Finlay knew he would have to prove himself in the ring, lest any old-timers think he was the beneficiary of nepotism. Though details of his earliest matches are sketchy, the accounts of former opponents such as Harris indicate that Finlay loved to fight from the start.

Having grown up in the mean streets of Belfast, where fights among young ruffians were a daily occurrence, Finlay was no stranger to violence. Rumor has it that if you spend enough time in McHugh’s Pub near Belfast’s waterfront, then you’re bound to hear some gruff boozer tell the well-worn story of how Finlay broke seven noses in a single day—still a record, apparently.

But throwing haymakers in a Belfast back-alley does not train a man for the demands of professional wrestling, and it seems Finlay recognized that as he neared his 20s. “We couldn’t believe how hard he trained for the wrestlin’,” recalls Nigel Harrison, a family friend. “Sometimes he’d spend hours just practicin’ a single hold, over an’ over. We pitied his poor trainin’ partners. Oh, the screams …”

When Finlay was given his first title shot, in 1982, a bid at the British heavy middleweight title held by Alan Kilby, he was ready. It was the first of many title reigns, as young Finlay grappled his way through British champions such as Ringo Rigby, Marty Jones, and eventually Dave Taylor.

Finlay began to develop an international reputation, thanks to his frequent trips to Japan in the early-1980s. Among contemporaries such as Dynamite Kid and Bret Hart, Finlay engaged in a notable rivalry with the original Tiger Mask. It was obvious to anyone watching Finlay’s matches in Japan and Western Europe that he was destined for the big leagues in the United States.

When the so-called “Belfast Bruiser” arrived in WCW in the mid-1990s, he was an anomaly: a hybrid of old-school European-style wrestling and the faster-paced American genre. That is, he was equally adept at captivating audiences as decimating opponents. He enjoyed a reign as WCW TV champion in 1998. His feuds with stars such as Lord Steven (William) Regal and Chris Benoit cemented Finlay’s reputation as a legitimate tough guy with the flexibility to adapt to any match style.

Ironically, it might have been that versatility that temporarily derailed Finlay’s career.

Eager to accept any type of match, he became embroiled in a series of hardcore brawls. During one of those matches, Finlay was sent through a table, severing nerves in his leg. He vanished from WCW programming.

Many observers assumed that Finlay, by then reaching the age at which many wrestlers consider hanging up their boots, would begin a new chapter of his life. In a way, that’s exactly what happened. His arrival behind-the-scenes as a WWE road agent sparked a mix of fear and reverence in many on the roster who had admired his in-ring work.

“Having him around the locker room was like having Picasso teaching an art class,” said a current (very small) Smackdown wrestler, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Those of us who saw him in WCW knew what he was capable of, and people like [Dean] Malenko would tell us stories of Finlay’s work in the U.K.”

Finlay developed a reputation around the WWE locker room as a stern mentor, willing to offer helpful advice, but quick to criticize a wrestler’s missteps in the ring.

What nobody knew—except perhaps Finlay himself—was that the Irish brawler was biding his time, waiting for his chance to get back into competition. When he eventually announced to a packed locker room that he would soon see them all in the ring, reactions were reportedly mixed. Some on the roster whispered that Finlay was past his prime, while others wondered how he would fare against the current crop of stars.

What the doubters failed to take into account, however, was Finlay’s guts. It was guts, combined with a ring savvy only a veteran of Finlay’s ilk can have, that helped him vanquish one opponent after another. Finlay has never been the biggest or the strongest. Nor has he been the flashiest, or garnered the most hype from promoters. What he does have—and what he has had since his scrappy days on the streets of Belfast—is the stubborn will to win.

What makes Finlay most dangerous is not just that he loves to fight. It’s that he lives to fight.