WWE 'Forcing' Damian Priest To Work Reduced Wrestling Schedule

Damian Priest has revealed that WWE are currently "forcing" him to work a reduced in-ring schedule due to the 43-year-old dealing with multiple injury issues.

Priest told Prince St. Pizza:

"It's unfortunate, and I don't like to bring it up too much, and I don't take breaks. Since I've been in WWE, I've literally taken zero days off. I've never asked for time off because I've been hurting. The company now, this year, decided like, 'Let's take it easy on him,' because I've been going hard for a while.

"Tore my shoulders a couple of times within the last year and a half. My knees are banged up. My back is ooph. I need a lot of work done, but I choose to not, because if I don't have to, I won't. I'll just figure it out, let's do rehab and just keep me in the game, coach, that kind of thing.

"So we've been doing that for a while but this year I think the company was like, 'Okay, we're happy with you but we need to make sure you're going to last here.' So they've been forcing me to take it easy, put it that way. Not the easiest thing to do when you want to just go out there and perform because you love what you do."

Damian Priest has only wrestled 24 matches in 2025, and only 9 of those matches have taken place in the second half of the year. This is well below the 76 matches Damian Priest had in 2024 or the 100 matches the former World Heavyweight Champion wrestled in 2023.

Priest's 2025 began with him defeating Finn Balor in a Street Fight, before the former Punishment Martinez transitioned to a feud with Drew McIntyre that ran through the May 24 episode of Saturday Night's Main Event. Priest has been feuding with Aleister Black since the summer, and he reformed the Terror Twins with Rhea Ripley to defeat Black and Zelina Vega on the December 12 episode of SmackDown.

Damian Priest won't be leaving WWE anytime soon as he signed a new deal with the company in early 2024 which came with the perk of flying first class.

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