WWE Superstar was interviewed on The Ringer Wrestling Show to promote WWE SummerSlam. Priest is scheduled to face Sheamus on the show for the United States Championship.
Priest said was asked if there was a point in his 17 year career where he wanted to call it quits:
“There were a few times that I thought that maybe I should go out and get a job, and I did. I stopped wrestling for almost a year. Something in me said, ‘I wasn’t born for this. I was born for this world. I was born for the WWE world.’ There was nothing else that I could envision myself doing where I would be happy and loving my life. I watched WrestleMania 25. It was Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels, and boom, right away, I was like, ‘I have to get back in the ring. I need to make people feel like the way they just made me feel.’ Then I went full throttle. I really overly committed myself. Before that, I kind of coasted and surrounded myself with the wrong people telling me what I wanted to hear. ‘You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be a big star. You have the look and charisma. Don’t worry about it.’ That’s not what I needed to hear. I needed somebody to give me a boot. I used to be really overweight. I lost over 150 pounds in the course of two years. I really dedicated myself, and it changed my life. I never believed in the idea of the power of positivity until one day I was like, ‘You know what? Let me just try it out. What else can I lose?’ You start doing it and an opportunity opens up, then another opportunity. I’m like, this is a real thing. Even if a negative happens, focus on the positive of any situation, and then you live happier.”
Priest talking about his friendship with Edge:
“This is somebody that I was a fan of. We have a lot of similarities like our style, the rock star thing. Early in my career, I was a dark, more evil style character. He was in The Brood. We evolved into more of our everyday selves. We like music. We like going to concerts. We like that lifestyle. Then you see it, and it’s like, we’re very similar. He’s a tremendous human being. I had never even met him, and he went out of his way to contact me to give me advice while I was in NXT, and then kept in contact with me. I would call him almost every week to get critiques from him for my matches, or he would just randomly call me to say, ‘Hey, I saw this. If you have a minute, I want to talk to you about it.’ Obviously now I’m here, and we see each other in the locker room. It’s just wild, and I’m so happy for him. I’m so happy that he’s happy, and he’s doing what he loves doing. Everybody obviously welcomed him back with open arms. He’s killing it right now.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “The Ringer Wrestling Show” with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
.@WWE Superstar @ArcherOfInfamy drops by @ringerpodcasts to hype up this year's #SummerSlam 💥
Listen now on @Spotify ➡️ https://t.co/7DzopvZElb #SpotifySummerSlam pic.twitter.com/y4P6wgZVuY
— Spotify Podcasts 🎙 (@spotifypodcasts) August 20, 2021
