which was successful. Because of this, it was expected that Bálor would be out four to six months, thus Raw General Manager Mick Foley later announced on Twitter that Bálor would be relinquishing his newly won WWE Universal Championship due to his injury after just 22 hours of holding it. While recovering from his injury, Bálor would appear on the WWE Network–exclusive United Kingdom Championship Tournament event. On 22 February 2017, Bálor returned to NXT to assist Shinsuke Nakamura, who was outnumbered by Andrade "Cien" Almas and Bobby Roode. On 10 March, Bálor made his in–ring return at a live event in a six–man tag team match, teaming with Chris Jericho and Sami Zayn to defeat Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe and Triple H. Bálor made his television return after WrestleMania 33 on 3 April episode of Raw, where he teamed with his former rival Seth Rollins as the two defeated Owens and Joe in a tag team match. Over the following weeks, Bálor would score victories over Jinder Mahal and Curt Hawkins while also receiving an ominous warning from Bray Wyatt and confronting Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. On 4 June at Extreme Rules, Bálor competed in a fatal five–way extreme rules match to determine the number one contender for Brock Lesnar's Universal Championship, in which Bálor lost after he passed out from Samoa Joe's Coquina Clutch. Bálor Club (2017–2018) In the weeks leading up to SummerSlam, Bálor began a feud with Elias after he inadvertently interrupted one of his performances. This led to a No Disqualification match between the two, where Elias defeated Bálor after interference from Bray Wyatt. This led to a match between the two, where Wyatt was able to score a victory over Bálor. The two faced off in a rematch at SummerSlam on 20 August, where Bálor returned his "Demon King" character and defeated Wyatt. The feud between the two continued throughout the following months and led to another match, on 24 September at No Mercy where Bálor once again defeated Wyatt. The two were also set to face in a rematch between Bálor's "Demon King" and Wyatt's "Sister Abigail" at TLC. However, Wyatt was ruled out for the event on 20 October due to an illness, and was instead replaced by AJ Styles. Although he defeated Styles, the two showed mutual respect and gestured the "Too Sweet" hand symbol to each other following the