WWE United States champion Damian Priest recently spoke with Superluchas.com about a number of different topics, including his first meeting with latin rapper Bad Bunny at the Royal Rumble, and how WWE initially wanted to pair Bunny with someone else. Highlights from the interview are below.
Talks meeting Bad Bunny for the first time and teaching him to do a dive:
“I met him, the day of the Royal Rumble 2021, and we got along well from the first moment. We talked, we made jokes, and we quickly entered the ring and I taught him some things. That same day of the Royal Rumble, a producer gave the idea of Bad Bunny throwing himself over Miz and Morrison. I went and told him if he dared to do that. He said, “Well, if I can practice it, let’s do it.” And I taught him to jump from the corner with another Superstar; it looks easy but it’s not. In fact, I was the first to receive him on the air. He jumped on me, and did it just once and said, ‘Okay, I can do it, I felt comfortable.’ If they told me to jump from the top rope to the floor like he did, I would say, ‘And how many are going to receive me?’ Only two guys, like with Bad Bunny? I would have said no.”
Says WWE wanted to replace him as Bad Bunny's parter but Triple H and Bunny said no:
“And the next day on Raw, they told me that maybe they were going to change Bad Bunny’s partner. But one of my bosses, Triple H, said that he absolutely does not. And then Bad Bunny, he told them himself that he wanted to work with me. That was great. A lot of people thought we weren’t going to get along because it was a weird combination, me being a rock music fan and him being a trap and reggaetón singer, but it wasn’t like that. I like Bad Bunny. Actually, the only music I don’t like is country. And yes, I like rock, but if I want to go out to dance and be with women, I’m not going to go to a rock concert. Give me Bad Bunny’s music so I can dance with many women. But for Damian Priest, the wrestler, it was a bit weird, I must admit. But we both got along really well and we have in common that a lot of people told us that we had to change many things, but we achieved our dreams in our own way as rock stars. I talked to him a lot about this – it was a dream for him but he didn’t have time to enter the ring. He was a fan since he was little, he had the dream of being a wrestler, but then, years later, he used his music fame to be able to fulfill this other dream."
Says that because of the pandemic Bad Bunny didn't have to tour and was able to practice at the Performance Center:
“Thanks to the pandemic, it worked because he didn’t have tours and he had free time to wrestle. I talked to him on the Billboards about when he is going to return to WWE and he told me that it has to be when he has full time, because he is not going to do it just to do it,” Priest stated. “He wants to be focused one hundred percent on wrestling and I love that from him. After everything went well at WrestleMania, he now has more desire than before to wrestle again. And if you laugh because I taught him how to jump rope on the same day as the Royal Rumble, well let me tell you that three of us taught him that Canadian Destroyer just one night before WrestleMania.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)