Damian Priest may be wrestling his final NXT match tonight at NXT’s New Year’s Evil when he faces Karrion Kross. The reason for this is because the former NXT North American Champion is expected to be called up to the main roster. Fightful Select has reported that, in fact, he almost debuted this past Friday on SmackDown, supposedly scheduled to be involved with Roman Reigns, however, plans changed.
Priest began training seriously to become a pro wrestler in 2012 at the Monster Factory, the same school involved in teaching current stars QT Marshall and Matt Riddle. In earlier years, they produced notable talents such as Balls Mahoney, Chris Candido, Bam Bam Bigelow, and The Headbangers. Eventually, Priesnt would begin training at the Ring of Honor dojo and competed for the promotion under the ring name Punisher Martinez.
During his three years with ROH, he’d share a ring with talents such as Lio Rush, Frankie Kazarian, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Jay White. At one point, he’d hold the ROH World Television Title and dropped it to Jeff Cobb in his final match with the promotion before joining WWE. Initially, he’d compete as Punishment Martinez on NXT house shows, but his name was changed to Damian Priest ahead of appearing on television. Last August, he won the NXT North American Championship in a five-way ladder match and recently dropped the title to Johnny Gargano at December’s NXT TakeOver: WarGames.
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