Biography
David Finlay is the snarling leader of The Dogs in All Elite Wrestling, a hard-hitting brawler who spent more than a decade becoming one of New Japan Pro-Wrestling's top stars before jumping to AEW in early 2026. A third-generation wrestler and the son of the respected Fit Finlay, he is a former Bullet Club leader, the inaugural IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion and the 2025 New Japan Cup winner.
Born in Hanover, Germany, Finlay was trained by his father before debuting for European Wrestling Promotion in December 2012, and he picked up the Power of Wrestling Junior title early on. In 2015 he joined the New Japan dojo as a young lion, learning the hard way and going pointless in that year's Best of the Super Juniors. Progress came quickly: in September 2016 he won the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship alongside Ricochet and his mentor Satoshi Kojima.
From 2017 he found his footing alongside Juice Robinson as FinJuice. The pair won the 2019 World Tag League and then beat Guerrillas of Destiny for the IWGP Tag Team Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 14 in January 2020, before adding the Impact World Tag Team Championship in 2021 by defeating The Good Brothers. A torn labrum had cost him around six months in 2019, and when Robinson defected to Bullet Club in 2022 Finlay was pushed into singles action, including a one-off AEW Dynamite match against Adam Page that June.
The real breakthrough came in 2023, when Finlay attacked Jay White in February and was unveiled as Bullet Club's fifth leader the following month. Fronting the aggressive War Dogs faction, he reached the New Japan Cup final, took the NEVER Openweight Championship from Tama Tonga, and then won the new IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship against Will Ospreay and Jon Moxley at Wrestle Kingdom 18. He lost it to Nic Nemeth in February 2024, won it back at Wrestling Dontaku, and finally dropped it to Yota Tsuji at Wrestle Kingdom 19. In 2025 he won the New Japan Cup by beating Shota Umino, fell short against Hirooki Goto for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, and led the War Dogs through a bitter war with House of Torture. By the end of the year the faction had swung to the fan-favourite side, and in January 2026 Bullet Club was formally retired in favour of a new alliance, Unbound Company.
Finlay's New Japan contract ran out in February 2026, and on 4 March he resurfaced on Dynamite as a villain, attacking Orange Cassidy and Darby Allin before forming The Dogs with Clark Connors and Gabe Kidd. The trio won the AEW World Trios Championship from JetSpeed and Místico in April, only to lose it at Dynasty days later. A feud with Jay White and Juice Robinson's Bang Bang Gang followed, with White costing Finlay a tag title shot at Forbidden Door before The Dogs took a double chain match at Redemption and then lost a tornado brawl at All Out. At WrestleDream on 17 October, Finlay and Connors were on the winning side of a 12-man tag alongside the Death Riders.
