Finn Balor innovated the Bloody Sunday move as Prince Devitt, although it is still a controversial move in the world of professional wrestling.
Before he was a star in WWE, Balor competed in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Then known as Prince Devitt, he founded the legendary Bullet Club, and is somewhat of a legend in the country.
He helped to build up the pro-wrestling scene in his home country of Ireland. Even as a young wrestler, he endeavored to train the next generation by opening his own wrestling school.
This led him to train many different wrestlers, including WWE’s JD McDonough and Becky Lynch.
While Finn Balor is famous in the WWE for his deadly looking Coup de Grace finisher (a double foot stomp from the top rope), he used a very different and controversial move in New Japan.
Prince Devitt’s Bloody Sunday
In New Japan Pro Wrestling, Prince Devitt used the Bloody Sunday as his finishing move.
He used that in addition to the Coup De Grace, giving him one of the best sets of finishers in the company.
The Bloody Sunday is an elevated spike DDT, popularizes by Balor in Japan.
To apply the move, the wrestler places the opponent in a front facelock and hooks one of the opponent’s arms behind their neck, as if going for a suplex.
However, they lift their opponent by the neck and arm, driving the opponent’s head into the mat at an alarming pace.
It is a deadly move that he has not been able to use in the WWE (Except on rare occasions). He has done a lifting variation of Sting’s Scorpion Death Drop, but the Bloody Sunday has eluded Finn Balor.
This move is called the 1916. Finn Balor confirmed on Twitter that “‘1916’ Named after the Irish Rising On Easter Sunday 1916.”
The Bloody Sunday is named after a day of violence, during the Irish War of Indepedence in 1920. On Sunday 21st November 1920, 30 people were killed during one day of the war, and is referred to as “Bloody Sunday”.
Despite popular opinion, the move was not named after the Bloody Sunday from 1972, where British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during the height of “The Troubles“.
The controversial name was not permitted for use in the WWE, due to them wanting to stay as far away from naming a move after an act that killed multiple people as they can.
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