WWE star Damian Priest was the latest guest on the Masked Man Show to discuss a number of different topics, including his thoughts on working with Triple H, and how he was nearly pulled from last year’s marquee WrestleMania 37 matchup where he tagged with Bad Bunny. Highlights from the interview are below.
Says he was nearly pulled from last year’s WrestleMania 37 matchup with Bad Bunny:
“I felt good that they trusted me in that role and I’m sure that there was talk because how can you trust someone that you don’t know, you know? There are people like Hunter, who knew I was fine and he is the one, the reason why it ended up happening, because I almost got switched out. They almost took me out of that spot. I wasn’t upset or anything, I was like, ‘that makes sense’. If I was on their shoes, 100%, that would be the way to go, and Hunter went to bat for me. And he was like, ‘hey,’ he was like, ‘sorry that they even told you that it’s not going to be you now because I’m gonna go have a conversation, you know?’ And he explained why I should be trusted, I guess. I wasn’t in the meeting, but I’m guessing that’s what he had to have done, you know? ‘No. I trust him, let’s trust him. He’s going to be fine’. Then they’re like, ‘okay, let’s go with Priest. And it’s crazy how it worked out though because, in the process, Bad Bunny and I ended up becoming friends, and all those nerves or pressure that you were just talking about, of, you know, my first WrestleMania, and then on top of that is with somebody else who is having their first WrestleMania, but also their first match, but they’re not from this world. You know, it was a lot. I think because we became friends and then like, through the training and the preparation, we were just joking around and we would laugh. We put in the hard word, you know, for sure. We were pros about that. But the other side is we’re enjoying and having fun doing it. I think that took a lot of pressure off. We took it off each other, but for me, because I’m the one that’s staying, I’m grateful that is the way it happened to be honest. It probably worked out better for me, and just from a pressure standpoint, I felt a lot better. Now the day of? I was a disaster.”
Says without Triple H there is no Damian Priest:
“There is no Damian Priest without Triple H. That’s 100%. There are no ifs and buts about it. I am not sitting here with you if there is no Triple H. And then, so you have that. And then his help, his advice, encouraging you to believe in yourself more so than he believes in you. Like, ‘no, no. You need to believe in yourself more.’ You know, I’m someone who always consciously doubts. Like, I’m not a negative person. I’m a very positive person, but I would question myself sometimes.”
Recalls feeling like he really belonged in WWE:
“After a match on NXT, it was my first actual match, like I had a few matches, but my first match against Pete Dunne, Butch now, I remember getting a text from X-Pac. He goes, ‘you belong’. You know, I thought that was so cool because he knows the way I am and Hunter was just like that. He came up to me and he was like, ‘that’s the guy’. You know, when I wrestled Finn Balor in NXT, he came back and he goes, ‘that is the guy I want to see every week now. That guy with that swag that you showcased out there’. Because before that, I’ve said it before, that he gave me a piece of advice, which he got from The Undertaker, which is also super cool, and he was like, ‘you know, Taker told me this once and I’m going to give it to you. When you figure out how to be yourself, you’re going to be more successful’. And he goes, ‘I know, it’s weird. It’s, how do you not know how to be yourself? You’re you. But it’s different on camera’. I was pretending to be a version of what people thought I was instead of just being and Shawn Michaels would say the same thing. He’d be like, ‘I like this guy. This guy’s cool. Just be that guy on TV’.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)
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