LJ Cleary Says Seeing Finn Balor Succeed Made Him Think ‘If He Can Do It, I Can Do It’

LJ Cleary shares the influence Finn Balor had on Irish wrestling.

In May of 2014, Finn Balor was announced to be signing with WWE and shortly after, he would make his debut in NXT before being called up to the WWE main roster in 2016, where he would become the first ever WWE Universal Champion.

While speaking to the Angle podcast at the recent WWE tryouts on SummerSlam week, LJ cleary spoke about the influence that Finn Balor has had on his career and Irish wrestling as a whole.

“He(Balor) was someone who made me see it was possible. Being someone from 20 minutes up the road from me, opening that school, and going on to have the career he’s had in WWE, he’s always been the kind of one, who showed me, from a very young age, well if he can do it I can do it.”

LJ would also speak on the Irish wrestling scene as a whole, pointing to the Irish contingent in WWE currently.

“We’ve got Sheamus, Becky, Finn Balor, JD McDonagh, Lyra Valkyria, I think that because Ireland is small, we are kind of looked at as like that’s the little island over there, you got the UK next to it and that’s massive, but then there’s little old Ireland. So I think Irish people, speaking for myself, we do have a chip on our shoulder… There’s a lot of pride in the work.”

Elsewhere in another recent interview, LJ spoke about his experience at the WWE tryouts. You can read more about that here.