Former World Heavyweight Champion Damian Priest has been a force to be reckoned with on the main roster of WWE since he debuted in the 2021 Royal Rumble after a successful run in "WWE NXT" with the North American Championship. With his dark style and massive size, Priest has often drew comparisons to The Undertaker, and he's been vocal about his love for Mark Calaway's character. The former Punishment Martinez recently explained on "Busted Open Radio" it was a segment involving "The Deadman" that made him realize he wanted to become a professional wrestler.
"[it was] the funeral parlor," Priest explained. "It was when Undertaker stuffed The Ultimate Warrior in a coffin and locked it, and everybody was fighting to open it because they were afraid he was going to suffocate and die. I was living in Puerto Rico and it was on two different channels. It was on an English channel and a Spanish channel. As a kid, I'm just flipping back between the channels because I think it's cool that it's the same thing on two different channels at the same time in two different languages."
Priest said he showed his mother, who told him to quit changing the channel because she was invested. He said when he stopped flipping between languages, he also got invested and knew, even as a kid, it was what he wanted to do, and it reminded him of the comic books he also loved.
"'The superhero almost got got by the super villain,'" he said. "Immediately I fell in love with the business. I fell in love with the Undertaker character. That's when I knew it was like, 'I want to do this with my life.'"
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
