David Finlay and Juice Robinson were two of the first people to walk through "the forbidden door."
At the end of IMPACT's No Surrender event in February 2021, a clip played announcing that NJPW tag team FinJuice would be coming to the IMPACT Zone. The duo showed up the following week and immediately entered into a feud with The Good Brothers, which culminated with them winning the IMPACT World Tag Team Titles one month later at Sacrifice.
Appearing as a guest on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Finlay explained how he and Robinson ended up in IMPACT, saying the following:
"So I got a text from Rocky [Romero] one day like, Hey, man, do you and juice want to do IMPACT? So of course then I text Juice real quick. I'm like, we're obviously gonna do IMPACT, right? Like, there's no way we're saying no to this, especially with like COVID restrictions in Japan and just travel restrictions all that were kind of like -- we spent the last year sitting on our ass, kinda. I like staying busy. I love wrestling. When I don't get to do it, I'm not as happy. So it was just it was an opportunity to just get back in the ring. So I was like, Yeah, let's do it and we were kind of off to the races and we've loved every minute of it."
Finlay describes the experience of showing up for the first time as akin to the first day of school. He notes that everyone was incredibly nice and that he was pleasantly surprised by how talented the roster is.
"That's a very good way of phrasing is the first day of school feeling because we knew a couple or at least I knew a couple of people I knew Sami Callihan because he had a tour over in Japan and like a handful of other guys saving is another one that comes to mind. But yeah, for the most part, it was like very much the first day of school, like, ‘Hey, what's up, I'm David,’ trying to figure out where you fit in. Then it was a nice surprise. Everyone was super cool. Like everyone's good people there. To my pleasant surprise, I found out IMPACT actually has a lot of talent, which made me very happy. It's something I wasn't aware of more talent than I realized. So that's been a nice discovery," Finlay added.
The biggest adjustment from Japan to IMPACT, according to Finlay, has been adapting to TV wrestling as opposed to working live events. The more they do it, though, the more comfortable they've become.
"I think it was just learning a new style of wrestling," he began by saying. "Because in Japan, it's not TV wrestling. It's a live event, so just adapting from that into like TV wrestling, I think too -- I've never done it. Then, Juice hadn't done it since he left NXT. So I think he was rusty. I was just inexperienced at it. So we're kind of learning on the go with all this. So yeah, it was just like a new experience for us and just trying to figure out like, Alright, well, what works, what doesn't, you know? What works better, what do we stay away from? So yeah, it's just like a learning curve for us."
No longer with the belts around their waists, FinJuice are currently feuding with Bullet Club. On the latest episode of IMPACT, Finlay defeated Hikuleo thanks to a distraction from his partner, but they were attacked after the match by Chris Bey and a returning El Phantasmo.
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