With a Money in the Bank win, subsequent World title run, and a big face turn with Rhea Ripley against their former stable The Judgment Day, Damian Priest was one of Raw’s biggest stars over the past few years. He’s still a prominent presence in WWE, but Priest has only wrestled 24 matches this year after averaging more than 85 per year from 2022-2024.
He revealed why in an appearance on the Delivering Happiness podcast. Asked by host — and apparently Priest’s uncle, actor Nick Turturro — if he’s
still on the road a lot, Damian replied:
A little less for me lately. This past year, I’ve taken a step back, been banged up a little bit. So kind of giving the bones and joints and ligaments and everything in between a little bit of a break. But no, no, I would say — it’s still a weekly travel thing. We’re on the road every week. I’m just not performing five days in a row like I used to.”
Priest went on to explain that he’s working through a number of issues, and the reduced schedule is WWE accommodating his efforts:
“It’s unfortunate and I don’t like to bring it up too much, and I don’t take breaks. Since I’ve been in WWE, I’ve literally taken zero days off. I’ve never asked for time off because I’ve been hurting.
”The company now this year decided, ‘Let’s take it easy on him’, cause I’ve been going hard for a while. I tore my shoulder a couple of times within the last year and a half. My knees are banged up. My back is — oof. I need a lot of work done, but I choose to not and because if I don’t have to, I won’t, and I’ll just, you know, I’ll figure it out. Like, let’s do rehab and just, ‘Keep me in the game, coach’ type of thing. So we’ve been doing that for a while.
“But this year, I think the company was like, ‘OK, we’re happy with you, but we need to make sure you’re going to last here.’ So they’ve been forcing me to take it easy, put it that way. Not the easiest thing to do when you want to just go out there and perform because you love what you do.”
And about the whole, “being related to NYPD Blue star and WrestleMania XI guest ring announcer Nicholas Turturro” thing? Priest and Uncle Nick didn’t know they were related either until just recently. They discovered it over their shared love of baseball’s Bronx Bombers, the New York Yankees:
Turturro: This is actually my nephew. We didn’t know. We had to do some research.
Priest: It was at a Yankees game we realized we were family.
Turturro: That was a good night. The Yankees won that night, we didn’t get swept and then you had to get on a plane to Saudi Arabia.
Check out Big Nick’s entire conversation with his nephew…
