Damian Priest Discusses His Rockstar Life, Failed 2010 WWE Tryout

NXT superstar Damian Priest joined “X-Pac” Sean Waltman on his X-Pac 1,2,360 podcast to discuss multiple topics. You can listen to the entire show in the video above or by clicking here. 

Fightful was sent the following highlights.

On his character’s mantra, “Live Forever”

“This is the closest to me that I’ve ever been in this business. The idea to live forever is to accomplish as much as I can in this business so that my name gets remembered.”
“When you think about iconic rock stars, like Morrison, and bands like Priest and Motley Crue, they’ll never get forgotten. So the idea is to have that image, because that’s the way I want to live, or at least how Damian Priest wants to live, because that’s the way somebody who’s never going to be forgotten lives. And to a certain degree, that is me. I try to live kind of like a rock star-ish life, where I like going out, I like going to concerts, I headbang. This is all real stuff.”

On his original WWE tryout for FCW in 2010

“I remember then being upset that I didn’t get hired. Looking back, if I wasn’t ready five years ago, then nine, ten years ago, I definitely wasn’t ready. Not even close. I wasn’t even in shape. I was in a shape, it was round, but I didn’t know the inside of a gym at all. I looked horrible, I was sloppy in the ring. But to me, I thought I was ready. Looking back now, I can be honest with myself and know that, although it took me a very long time to get here, I’m the most prepared I could be.”

On the power of positive thinking

“It’s not a work. That ‘being positive’ thing, it really works. I, like anybody else, would hear stories of others [about] the power of positivity, and I always thought, ‘Okay, whatever.’ But then, when you really start making an effort to do it, it’s incredible the amount of positive that can happen in return. Just because you’re not so focused on the negative, and you just keep moving forward and moving forward and moving forward. So even when I did my [first] PC tryout and I was turned down, while I was upset, it didn’t stop me. I still kept on working hard, and I still got more opportunities. I got an actual job in wrestling and I got to travel different parts of the world wrestling, which I’d never done in all the years I’d been in the business. And then, when I wrote this place off, all of a sudden, I’m getting a phone call, and I’m like, ‘This is unexpected, but wow.’”