The current WWE United States champion Damian Priest who is also is former WWE NXT North American champion recently talked about his tough time before joining the world of professional wrestling. Priest has struggled a lot for his livelihood in the early days of his life.
Damian Priest is a common name on the lips of WWE fans nowadays. It took quite a time for him to join the world of professional wrestling. And the road to the journey for the world of professional wrestling has been very difficult for the thirty nine year old professional wrestler. He joined the world of wrestling quite late. When he arrived to the world of professional wrestling he was already thirty two where is most of the professional wrestlers start their professional wrestling training during their teenage time.
Damian Priest On His Tough Times
What most people do not know that Priest had to stay homeless for quite a time. Time has been very difficult for the American Professional wrestler before he joined the world of wrestling. He came to the world of professional wrestling at the age of thirty two. He spent three years in the Ring of Honor before joining WWE. He even became ROH World Television champion one time.
He joined WWE in 2018. From the very first day of joining the promotion he had been very impressive. He came to the main roster earlier this year after having an excellent run holding the NXT North American Championship. Currently he is carrying WWE United States Championship quite strongly and the fans are loving his ring works so far. Hopefully he has an amazing career lying ahead of him.
Damian Priest who is also is former WWE NXT North American champion recently spoke to Superluchas where he talked about his tough time before joining the world of professional wrestling. Priest has struggled a lot for his livelihood in the early days of his life. He said;
“Mine was a long road to wrestling and it wasn’t easy. For me, if you really want to be a wrestler in your life, you have to try one hundred percent. I was fifty percent with wrestling and suffered a lot for many years. I lived on the street for a few months because I had no money at all. I lived on the street, I slept on the street, and I was homeless and looking for how to eat. Even having work, I suffered.
“I tried to pay rent, sometimes I did not know what I was going to eat the next day. I kind of gave up wrestling and started working in nightclubs and earned money. I worked as a bouncer, and then I was manager of several night clubs and strip clubs and I was very fat. I lost about 160 pounds, but I almost gave up wrestling.
“I didn’t see that I had a future there. However, one day one of the night club, owners told me that he was going to give me more work and more money but that I had to stop doing that wrestling thing that I did on weekends. So, I don’t know how, but I said, ‘No, I better quit. This is my two-week notice’
“Although I quickly said, ‘Oh sh**! What did I do?’ But that was the moment when I dedicated myself one hundred percent to trying to achieve my dream,” Priest continued. “Nobody was going to work for my dream and that was the problem, I thought that everyone was going to help me. And the worst thing was that everyone told me: “Don’t worry, with your size, you will be a great star.” That was the worst thing I ever heard, I put myself on a ‘sleep mode’ and I didn’t work for my dreams.
“I jumped right in and thank God it turned out well. I changed my life to positive, I started exercising, and it was actually the first time in my life that I got into a gym. And that was in 2012, less than 10 years ago… Being homeless was my normal life at the time, so I was just trying to find a way to eat and find a place to sleep.
“It wasn’t a long time but a couple of months went by where I had nowhere to go, and then some friends helped me. I stayed at their houses for a few weeks and so on until I managed to get up, find a job, and rent an apartment, but it was not easy.”