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The Moment Damian Priest Thought Would Get Him Fired By WWE

By Lyle Kilbane • Published 14th August 2024

Damian Priest might have just held the World Heavyweight Championship but one moment not too long ago left him fearing for his WWE future.

Damian Priest was the first WWE star recruited by Edge into The Judgment Day and was quickly followed by Rhea Ripley to form a menacing trio. However, this all happened under the previous management of WWE with Vince McMahon still in charge and that version of the group did not last long.

Finn Balor joined the group despite previously fighting them and joined up with Priest and Ripley to kick the WWE Hall of Famer out. Since then Dominik Mysterio joined the group before Balor vouched for JD McDonagh and Carlito ended up as part of the outfit by osmosis after simply repeatedly turning up.

Damian Priest Angry After Judgment Day Split

Speaking to Sports Illustrated, Damian Priest revealed there was a lot of anger in the air when Edge was booted out of the group and admits the major change left him fearing the phone call no WWE star wants to get:

We’d just had a major moment joining together forming The Judgment Day. It felt like no time had passed, and then it was Edge who told me that he was being taken out of the group. He waited to tell me after TV one night when we were on the road. I thought we were done. I was so upset. When Rhea found out, she was even more mad than me.
Edge was mad, too. I still speak with him–he was one of our biggest backers. When he told me, I remember him saying, ‘All of this, for nothing.’ And I repeated that–for nothing. That’s the way it felt at the time. I was waiting for the phone call to get released. Obviously, it worked out a lot differently.

Since then The Judgment Day have reached the highest of highs but SummerSlam proved to be the lowest of lows for Damian Priest and Rhea Ripley. Priest was screwed by Finn Balor allowing Gunther to win the World Heavyweight Title while Dominik Mysterio turned his back on Rhea Ripley to cement his new relationship with Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan.