WWE Extreme Rules 2019: 5 reasons why Finn Bálor lost the Intercontinental Championship to Shinsuke Nakamura 

#2. Is Finn Bálor being punished?

Is Finn Balor being punished by the backstage officials in WWE?

As mentioned earlier, Finn Bálor hadn't been on WWE TV for weeks after Super ShowDown and his feud with Andrade, as WWE gave him some personal time following that show. He then returned to a feud with Nakamura and has lost back-to-back matches.

This match was also relegated to the Extreme Rules kickoff show, it was a short match and it was a clean loss, which means that Bálor doesn't really have that much of a claim when it comes to a rematch. He's one of the company's biggest merchandise sellers, so many believed that he would have been pushed significantly after this fact surfaced. Given the events of the past few weeks, however, it's hard not to speculate that Bálor is being punished for some undisclosed reason, no matter how far fetched that might seem.

He's a slick one.#ExtremeRules #ICTitle @ShinsukeN pic.twitter.com/eGom58bVUr

— WWE (@WWE) July 14, 2019