Damian Priest on WWE babyface turn: ‘It’s cool to have people support me’
Damian Priest spoke to Sports Illustrated about the fan support he’s received of late in WWE.
Following the events at WWE SummerSlam, Priest is now firmly in a babyface role on Raw and headed into a program with his former Judgment Day stablemate, Finn Balor.
“I’ve been (a babyface) before, but it wasn’t always me. This is me. And it’s cool to have people support me not because they’re told to, but because they want to,” Priest said.
When speaking about his match on Saturday with Gunther, Priest also noted that while they are both strong characters on WWE programming, they aren’t “part of that class of the main guys.”
“We’re not part of that class of the main guys. We’re seen as strong characters on TV, but we’re not Seth Rollins, we’re not Punk, we’re not Drew or Roman. We’re not the regularly scheduled programmed guys. AJ, Randy, Finn, we’re none of those guys. The fact it was Gunther and me in this high-profile world title match, that’s big. There were so many boys and girls in the locker room who were like, ‘One of us made it.’ That was my favorite part, hearing my peers talk about what it meant to them.”
Priest also spoke about winning the World Heavyweight title at WrestleMania 40 when he cashed in his MITB briefcase on Drew McIntyre, who had just defeated Seth Rollins for the belt moments earlier.
“That whole day at WrestleMania 40, it was insane,” said Priest. “So many things had already changed. The closer we got to it, many people who are very, very smart came up to me and said, ‘Things can change.’ So you never know. I knew things could change, even up to the last minute.”
“As much as I accomplished, there’s still so much more,” said Priest. “My dreams were to wrestle at WrestleMania and win a world title. Now there are new goals. I’m hungrier now than ever.”
The latest episode of WWE 24 featuring Damian Priest is now streaming on Peacock.
Priest’s full interview with SI.com is available here.