Damian Priest Talks Falling Onto The Steel Steps At NXT TakeOver: In Your House

Damian Priest had a rough outing at NXT TakeOver: In Your House, not only losing to Finn Balor, but taking a scary bump onto the steel steps.

Priest was on the apron when Balor knocked him off, sending Priest crashing onto the steel steps on the floor. Priest’s back ending up catching the edge of the steps, making for a loud thud and a rough-looking landing. 

Speaking to Comic Book, Priest gave an update on how his back is feeling following the spot. 

“Yeah. It’s a little tender,” Priest said. “At this point, it’s more muscle soreness and pain than anything else. Nothing too serious. It’s just that the muscles are so tightened up that sometimes if I move too fast I’ll feel a jolt of pain, only because I need to really loosen up and warm up before I do physical activities. So it’s just a matter of stretching and physical therapy to get moving, basically, but I’m okay. I’m cleared to go. It’s not going to be an issue, as far as me being able to compete, put it that way. There’s always something that hinders, there’s always something in pain, but I think it doesn’t get recognized because we don’t even recognize it. We’re so used to it and accustomed to it, that we’re just on a go, go, go mode. We get asked all the time, ‘How you feeling?’ The answer is easy, ‘Fine. I’m great.’ But, realistically, we’re not. There’s something sore. There’s a muscle or a tendon or something. There’s always something wrong with us, but we choose to kind of block out that pain. We’re just focused on the goal at hand, which is usually to win a match. It doesn’t get appreciated and brought up as much, but I think that’s because of the way we treat it, where we don’t even bring it up. I get why people don’t talk about it as much. To be honest, I think we all prefer it that way. We don’t want that to be a focal point. We don’t want that to be the news. We want our ability, we want our match quality, we want that to be the focus on our business, basically.”

Pride comes before the fall. #NXTTakeOver @FinnBalor @ArcherOfInfamy pic.twitter.com/oQUtz5UBm1

— WWE (@WWE) June 7, 2020

Priest was back in action last Wednesday against Killian Dain and is now set to face Cameron Grimes on tonight’s episode of NXT. 

Fightful will provide live coverage of NXT beginning at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday.