Damian Priest Says Being Homeless Was A Normal Way Of Life For Him

Damian Priest followed his dreams and finally made it to WWE. This was not an easy road for him as Damian Priest had to fight through plenty of adversity along the way.

Priest is now WWE United States Champion, but his career wasn’t always full of success. He dealt with homelessness and had to battle poverty while keeping everything together. When he was faced with a difficult decision to make more money and give up pro wrestling, he quit his job and bet on himself.

Super Luchas recently had a chat with Priest and he opened up about those struggles in a big way. It wasn’t easy for Damian Priest, but he was able to grind and finally catch enough lucky breaks where all that hard work allowed him to capture that opportunity.

“Mine was a long road to wrestling and it wasn’t easy. For me, if you really want to be a wrestler in your life, you have to try one hundred percent. I was fifty percent with wrestling and suffered a lot for many years.”

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“I lived on the street for a few months because I had no money at all. I lived on the street, I slept on the street, and I was homeless and looking for how to eat. Even having work, I suffered. I tried to pay rent, sometimes I did not know what I was going to eat the next day. I kind of gave up wrestling and started working in nightclubs and earned money. I worked as a bouncer, and then I was manager of several night clubs and strip clubs and I was very fat. I lost about 160 pounds, but I almost gave up wrestling. I didn’t see that I had a future there. However, one day one of the night club, owners told me that he was going to give me more work and more money but that I had to stop doing that wrestling thing that I did on weekends. So, I don’t know how, but I said, ‘No, I better quit. This is my two-week notice’.”

“Although I quickly said, ‘Oh sh*t! What did I do?’ But that was the moment when I dedicated myself one hundred percent to trying to achieve my dream. Nobody was going to work for my dream and that was the problem, I thought that everyone was going to help me. And the worst thing was that everyone told me: “Don’t worry, with your size, you will be a great star.” That was the worst thing I ever heard, I put myself on a ‘sleep mode’ and I didn’t work for my dreams.”

“I jumped right in and thank God it turned out well. I changed my life to positive, I started exercising, and it was actually the first time in my life that I got into a gym. And that was in 2012, less than 10 years ago… Being homeless was my normal life at the time, so I was just trying to find a way to eat and find a place to sleep. It wasn’t a long time but a couple of months went by where I had nowhere to go, and then some friends helped me. I stayed at their houses for a few weeks and so on until I managed to get up, find a job, and rent an apartment, but it was not easy.”

Following a career-defining match at WrestleMania where he teamed up with Bad Bunny, a man who came from the same town that Priest did in Puerto Rico, Damian Priest is on a roll. He is entertaining crowds all over the world and not worrying about where he will sleep at night. He is also very ready to continue capturing any opportunity in front of him.

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