Faces don't always need to save other faces in WWE, but what's the point of the union between Finn Balor, AJ Styles, and Liv Morgan if The Demon won't make the save when his pseudo-Bullet Club buddies are being beaten up by Judgement Day on Monday Night Raw? On the May 23 episode of the show, Styles and Morgan squared off with Damian Priest and Rhea Ripley in a mixed-tag match. Edge accompanied his Judgement Day stablemates to the ring, while Balor was nowhere to be found.
Balor was nowhere to be seen before the match when Edge was running the crowd down by grabbing the lowest hanging fruit possible. He was still conspicuous by his absence during the match when the Rated R Superstar kept interfering on Priest and Ripley's behalf. And he also failed to appear after the match was over when Judgement Day members outnumbered Styles and Morgan 3-to-2 and attacked them viciously in the middle of the ring.
Not only did Balor not save his supposed friends, but the commentary team didn't even mention him as the possible equalizer. If this was meant to create questions about whether or not he's joined up with Edge's group, the least Michael Cole could have done is ponder that out loud on commentary. Or WWE could have cut to a backstage shot, where Balor was found laid out by an attack from an unknown fourth member of Judgement Day. Edge teased that before the match, after all. There are a dozen ways to make this angle entertaining, and creative chose to take none of those lanes.
Just one sentence from commentary would have made this work. One shouted line from Judgement Day founder Edge during the beatdown would have planted the seed for a possible Balor heel turn. Whether or not that turn actually happened would be irrelevant; the point is that it would at least make sense. Instead, the audience is asked to really push their willing suspension of disbelief, especially since fans have seen Balor, Styles, and Morgan on the same page up until this point. The writing seems to be on the wall as far as where this whole program is going.
Odds seem good that Styles will cut a promo asking Balor why he didn't lend a hand during the post-match beat down next week. Maybe WWE stretches this out over weeks and months, and perhaps The Demon joins Judgement Day as the fourth member. Maybe they stick with the Bullet Club lite stuff, but regardless of the direction here, what happened on Monday Night Raw made no sense from multiple perspectives. If the point was to get fans talking about Balor's whereabouts, then it is mission accomplished, but there were other, more effective ways to weave this storyline that WWE ignored or didn't consider in the first place. Sadly, this feud is on life support, and a Balor heel turn may not even be enough to save it. Fans can be heard openly laughing during Judgement Day promos, and now Balor isn't even being mentioned while Styles and Morgan are getting wailed on by a supposed mutual enemy.