For a long time, it seemed written in the stars that David Finlay would wrestle for WWE, given that his father, Fit Finlay, is a longtime producer/trainer in the promotion industrywhile his brother Brogan Finlay currently competes in NXT as Uriah Connors. Instead, Finlay currently wrestles in AEW alongside longtime teammates Gabe Kidd and Clark Connors.although he also believed for a while that his path was leading him to the WWE. On appearance “It’s Jericho” Finlay revealed that he and his father planned his wrestling career when he was young, with the expectation that he would eventually end up in the WWE. Instead, one of the stops led him to reconsider.
“When I was fifteen, I sat down with my dad and said, “No, this (wrestling) is what I want to do with my life,” Finlay said. “He was like, ‘Okay. Here’s the plan. You should take up wrestling, which Natty Neidhart told me to do. And I did. And from there it’s like, “Okay. Are you going to England and Germany for a little while? And then go and do the (New Japan) Dojo for six months, and then go to what was at FCWX. It became eleven years in Japan because I loved it so much.”
Finlay’s success during his time with New Japan Pro Wrestling suggests that he ultimately made the right decision to spend eleven years with the promotion. Although he was never able to capture the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, Finlay found success elsewhere, winning the IWGP Global Championship twice, including being the first title holder, the 2025 New Japan Cup, the NEVER Openweight Championship, and the IWGP Tag Team Championship with Juice Robinson. He carried the success over to AEW, winning the AEW World Triathlon Championship with Connors and Kidd back in April.
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