David Finlay faced off with Gunther in his first-ever wrestling match, and he reflected on the match in a new interview. Finlay spoke with Fightful for a new interview and talked about competing against Gunther (then WALTER) at a European show in December 22nd, 2012. He also teamed with his father Fit against Dan Collins & Robbie Brookside on the same night.
“Okay. So that was actually my first match ever,” Finlay recalled. “That was me breaking into the business. So what happened was my dad, he got released from WWE for whatever. So he went on an indie run and he hated it so much that he was like, ‘I’m retired.’ So he was like, ‘Do you want to do you want to do a tag match to me? It’s gonna be my last match?’ My dad’s kind of whimsical sometimes, not everything comes to fruition. So I was just like, ‘Oh, yeah, sure. That sounds great,’ thinking it was never gonna happen. About two weeks later he was like, ‘Alright, we’re going to Germany. You got a singles match and then we’re gonna do a tag match in the main. Street fight tag match.’ So I was like, ‘Okay, cool. I don’t have any gear.’ So I used like one of my high school wrestling singlets.”
He continued, “Got kick pads from high spots and I used my little shooter boots, and yeah, Big Van Walter just beat the shit out of me. I still remember like just not being able to chew for like three days after and then later that night did a tag match against Robbie Brookside with my dad. That was my entry into the business was getting flown out to Germany to work twice and do a main event with my dad for his retirement match. So yeah, it was a very memorable night for me. But, you know, if someone’s going to get flown out to a different continent for the first match, it’s going to be fourth generation wrestler like myself.”
Finlay is now in NJPW and is the leader of the Bullet Club War Dogs.
