We wrestling fans may know him as "the man who loves to fight." To those that know him personally, he is David Edward Finlay Jr.
David was born January 31, 1958 in Belfast Northern Ireland.
Finlay's first match was in 1974 when another wrestler no-showed his father's promotion. He did begin wrestling full-time in Carrickfergus and the rest of Ireland for the next four years.
In 1978, he ventured to England wrestling promotions. Finlay's first wrestling championship came when he defeated Alan Kilby in 1982, which was the Joint Promotions British Heavyweight Championship.
The title exchanged back and forth with his various opponents for the rest of the year, but in 1983, he lost it for the final time. Finaly won a tournament to name a new British Light Heavyweight champion and filled that position by defeating Ringo Rigby in the finals.
He didn't hold the title for a very long time, but then pinned Marty Jones to win the World Midheavyweight Championship. Much like his first title, Finlay traded it back and forth for two years before finally losing to Jones by disqualification, though he did defeat Jones to win Join Promotion's British Light Heavyweight title.
Finlay also captured the British Heavyweight Championship and competed on a ITV's World of Sport program as David "Fit" Finlay.
The fighting Irishman began traveling to Japan, Germany, and even Austria and wrestled for the Catch Wrestling Association. He was still the All Star Champion (British Heavyweight Champ) and teamed with Jones to win the CWA (Catch Wrestling Association) tag titles from Tony St. Clair and Miles Zrno.
He finally lost the All Star title to Dave Taylor, but focused primarily on the CWA and captured many titles for that promotion.
In 1995, Finlay signed with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and was billed as The Belfast Bruiser. He feuded with Lord Steven Regal in 1996. During this feud they had a parking lot brawl that was shown on the WCW flagship program Nitro, which Finlay received a eye injury from some broken glass.
He wrestled with an eyepatch for several weeks afterwards. Regal told the Bruiser, "I"m going to send you back to Ireland picking potatoes." The Bruiser won by disqualification when Regal's "Bluebloods" interfered and attacked Finlay. Regal was awarded a broken nose during this match.
After some time off from WCW rings, Finlay changed his ring name from Belfast Bruiser to Fit Finlay, which by the way, was misspelled on WCW television as "Finley." He died his hair blond and cut it short.
He went on to win the WCW World Television championship in 1998 by pinning Booker T. This led to a three way match between Finlay, Booker T and Chris Benoit. Finlay dropped the title to Booker at The Great American Bash and fell from the contenders at the same title.
He then began a program with Alex Wright, who claimed Finlay had ended the career of his father, Steve Wright. Alex defeated Finlay at Halloween Havoc of 1998.
With his contract with WCW nearing an end, he managed to win the Hardcore Junkard Invitational at Bash at the Beach. He suffered a lacerated nerve in his leg during a hardcore match at one of the house shows (non televised event) in Mississippi in the summer of 1999 and it nearly cost him his leg.
With treatment and rehab he regained the use of his leg and returned later in the year. After the turn of the new millennium, he formed a group that called themselves the "Hardcore Soldiers" with Brian Knobbs (one of the Nasty Boys) and Al Green.
They feuded with Vampire, which led to a match between Finlay and the Vampire at Uncensored, which was his last pay-per-view for WCW. However, his final WCW match was at a house show in Germany, and he lost to Norman Smiley in a hardcore match.
An interesting bit of information is that when WCW was bought out by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF/E), Finlay began working for them as a trainer for up and coming wrestlers and was put in charge of training the divas for their matches.
In 2004, Finlay began his wrestling comeback in a house show in Glasgow, Scotland against Jamie Noble. His gimmick was a proud native Irishman who loves to fight.
His first TV match for the WWE came in January of 2006 on Smackdown. His opponent was Matt Hardy and Finlay lost by disqualification.
After the match was officially over, Finlay dragged Hardy to the steel steps and smashed his face into them with his boot. This established Finlay as a heel.
In March of 2006, Finlay was involved in a big feud with Bobby Lashley, which started after he interfered in Lashley's match with JBL at Now Way Out, which cost Lashley his unbeaten streak.
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