WWE star and former NXT North American champion Damian Priest recently spoke with Sporting News Australia about a variety of topics, including what WWE told him about his opportunity with Bad Bunny, and reveals the conversation Triple H had with him about the Royal Rumble. Highlights are below.
How WWE told him that if he messed up the Bad Bunny opportunity he would be done:
Yes (it does give me confidence). It goes both ways. I can put in all the work I want, but obviously I also need the company to believe in me and have my back. A lot of people were honest with me and they told me, ‘Listen, you can’t blow this because if you do, you’re done.’ All I said was you’re giving me the opportunity, I’m going to do everything to my abilities to knock this out of the park. I knew I had put in the work, so give me the opportunity and I will do my end. It goes both ways, and I think we both delivered so we brought our audience a product worthy of them being entertained and being happy to watch.
On being told by Triple H he’d be in the Royal Rumble matchup:
We’re in the WWE, so we know switching brands is a given and that’s gonna happen to just about everyone at some point. When it happens, this is Raw or this is SmackDown, these are the programs since I was a kid that I’ve been watching. The Royal Rumble is my favorite pay-per-view of the year – it’s most people’s just because the thrill of who’s next, and the buzzer and the music. It’s so exciting and then it’s the road to WrestleMania. It was really cool when he told me that, and then to actually be in the Royal Rumble and the countdown and my music hitting – it was what I wanted. The feeling I had was exactly what it should have been, and I was extremely happy to have had that moment.