— According to a report at Sports Illustrated, the rumors of a potential Finn Balor vs. Brock Lesnar match being pulled from Royal Rumble are untrue because Balor was never even considered as an opponent for Lesnar.

— The story goes on to state that Vince McMahon sees Balor as “bland” when he is not portraying “The Demon” and is slowly transitioning him into a role similar to what Dolph Ziggler portrays – a wrestler who ends up having a great series of matches but never reaches main event status due to the front office having no faith in him.

— Reportedly, WWE is also against the idea of reuniting him with Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson as The Club.

— While we can’t completely refute this report from Sports Illustrated, we do know that WWE did definitely consider Balor as an opponent for Lesnar, but the time frame for that was before the summer. In fact, WWE began teasing a potential match by having Paul Heyman put over Balor on a promo on Raw while also getting Balor to speak on trying to regain his title (after never having been beaten for it). When those plans changed remains unclear, but one rumor we heard is that Balor’s size is a big reason Vince doesn’t see him as a logical challenger for Brock.