Damian Priest spoke with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated following WWE SummerSlam, where he dropped the WWE World Heavyweight Title to Gunther in the co-main event. Here are the highlights:
On the loss: “It’s inevitable. When you win this belt, the only guarantee is you’re going to lose it. But I’m not losing sight of what we accomplished. I’m the world champ walking into SummerSlam–that’s crazy. Forget for a moment about everything Gunther has said to me and what I’ve said to him. We’re not part of that class of the main guys. We’re seen as strong characters on TV, but we’re not Seth Rollins, we’re not Punk, we’re not Drew or Roman. We’re not the regularly scheduled programmed guys. AJ, Randy, Finn, we’re none of those guys. The fact it was Gunther and me in this high-profile world title match, that’s big. There were so many boys and girls in the locker room who were like, ‘One of us made it.’ That was my favorite part, hearing my peers talk about when it meant to them.”
On what’s next: “As much as I accomplished, there’s still so much more. My dreams were to wrestle at WrestleMania and win a world title. Now there are new goals. I’m hungrier now than ever.”
