While some wrestlers arrive in WWE already fully formed, having spent years honing a character on the independent circuit like Damian Priest before the company ever calls others develop within their system.
Damian Priest is one of the clearer examples of that path actually working. He spent nearly fourteen years grinding through the U.S. indie scene and Ring of Honor under names most casual fans never heard.
Priest would also drop well over a hundred pounds along the way, and didn’t sign with WWE until he was already 36 years old.
After this time, he’s headlined WrestleManias, led one of the most dominant factions in modern WWE history, and become the first wrestler of Puerto Rican descent to hold a WWE world title since Pedro Morales.
Damian Priest – Karate, Puerto Rico, and a Slow Star
Damian Priest was born Luis Martinez on September 26, 1982, in New York City but raised in Dorado, Puerto Rico, where he grew up watching the territory promotion World Wrestling Council and training in Gōjū-ryū karate under his father.
He made his wrestling debut in March 2005, working the American independent circuit for the next several years under a mix of names, including his own and, eventually, Punisher Martinez.
His early run wasn’t glamorous. He worked small promotions across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. This would include Keystone Pro Wrestling, MCW, Empire State Wrestling, and Dynamite Championship Wrestling while training more seriously at Danny Cage’s Monster Factory school in New Jersey.
He picked up his first taste of championship gold there, winning the MFPW Tag Team Championship with a partner named Brolly in November 2013, and later the promotion’s Heavyweight title in July 2014.
Along the way, he also held tag gold at Keystone Pro Wrestling alongside a young Matt Riddle, working as a team billed as Ultimate Punishment.
Making a Name in Ring of Honor as Punishment Martinez
Priest’s profile grew considerably once he signed with Ring of Honor. He’d actually appeared for the company briefly in 2015 in dark matches under his real name.
But his official ROH run began in early 2016, competing in the ROH Top Prospect Tournament as Punishment Martinez.
He lost to Lio Rush in the semifinals, but ROH signed him to a contract regardless. He debuted as a heel, aligning with B.J. Whitmer and Kevin Sullivan in a rivalry against Steve Corino, and through ROH’s working relationship with New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
He got the chance to work in Japan as well appearing at Honor Rising: Japan 2017, where he unsuccessfully challenged Hirooki Goto for the NEVER Openweight Championship, billed there simply as “Punisher Martinez.”
His biggest ROH accomplishment came in 2018, when he beat Silas Young for the ROH World Television Championship. He lost the title to Jeff Cobb that September and left the company shortly after — by that point, WWE had already taken notice.
Joining WWE and Becoming Damian Priest
Priest had signed with WWE in October 2018 and joined NXT, initially competing under his old ring name before the company rebranded him as Damian Priest in early 2019.
The new name and presentation stuck immediately. He built a run through NXT feuding with names like Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic over the NXT North American Championship.
By 2020 had become one of the brand’s steadier upper-card presences, eventually capturing the NXT North American Championship himself.
Priest’s main roster arrival came at WrestleMania 37 in 2021, in one of the more unusual celebrity crossover moments in recent WrestleMania history.
He aligned with Puerto Rican music superstar Bad Bunny to beat The Miz and John Morrison in a tag match, a pairing that turned Priest into an instant fan favorite given Bad Bunny’s massive following.
Later that year, he won the WWE United States Championship, but after being left off the WrestleMania 38 card entirely, his career took its most significant turn.
All Rise – Forming The Judgment Day
At WrestleMania 38 in April 2022, Priest joined Edge’s newly formed villainous stable, The Judgment Day, alongside Rhea Ripley, and the group would go on to become one of the defining factions of the mid-2020s WWE product.
Priest’s role within the group escalated quickly. By June 2022, he led an outright coup against Edge, forcing the group’s founder out and becoming its new driving force.
That shift came with real consequences: Priest turned on his former Bad Bunny alliance, brutally assaulting the musician in an angle that set up a high-profile showdown between them at WWE Backlash.
Although he lost that match, the story cemented Priest and his transformation from scrappy underdog to legitimate menace.
Finn Bálor and Dominik Mysterio joined the group not long after, rounding out the lineup that would dominate WWE television for the next two years.
Priest and Bálor became a genuinely accomplished tag team within the faction, capturing the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships simultaneously and the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship — across multiple reigns in 2023.
Senor Money in the Bank and a World Title
Priest won the 2023 Men’s Money in the Bank ladder match. In doing so, it guaranteed him a world championship opportunity whenever he chose to cash it in.
He held the briefcase for 282 days, a stretch that drew some criticism from fans as Seth Rollins dealt with recurring injuries during his championship reign, giving Priest repeated openings he didn’t take.
The moment finally came at WrestleMania XL in April 2024. Drew McIntyre had just won the World Heavyweight Championship from Rollins in the show’s opening match.
This was only for CM Punk, who was sitting at the broadcast table, to attack McIntyre moments into his celebration.
Priest’s music hit immediately after, and he cashed in his contract to pin a vulnerable McIntyre, winning the World Heavyweight Championship for the first time in his career. In doing so, it made McIntyre’s reign the shortest in the title’s history at five minutes and 46 seconds.
Speaking to the media after the show, Priest didn’t hide how much the moment meant to him, especially given how uncertain things had looked for The Judgment Day early on.
He said that, starting two years earlier, when the group first formed, there was an idea of using talent that could have been main-eventers but were just floating, and he admitted there was a stretch when he genuinely thought he was done.
“It’s one of those things that’s really hard to put into words. It’s like, what’s happening?
Starting from two years ago when we formed the Judgment Day, there was kind of an idea of using talent that could possibly be main-eventers or have been main-eventers, but they’re just floating.
Then it took off to a different direction, and I’ll be honest, there was a moment that I wasn’t sure it was gonna work.
I thought I was done. I wasn’t even sure I was gonna still be here with the company, to be honest.
Then I don’t know. It was just the addition obviously with Finn Balor, Rhea, then Dom, and now JD, I feel like all of our differences made something special. All of us bring out the best out of each other. Then flowing into Puerto Rico, and that
event, which I still to this day, it was one of the most important matches of my career. The win or loss was inconsequential.
It was about representation and what we can do to show off, show off that the company in another country or in another atmosphere could be successful.
Now, you see with the business we’re doing in all these other countries, I mean, Australia was incredible.
Then we flow into Money in the Bank, which was in London, and that was cool. But even still, you never know what’s gonna happen.
It took me a minute to cash in, but you’re talking about one of the greatest, if not the greatest, WrestleMania of all time, in a city where it was 20 minutes away from where I started my career.
I did it in front of my father, my brothers, friends, one of the coolest moments of my life. Shoutout to the Philadelphia crowd because they made that really special.
Damian Priest – ‘WWE World Heavyweight Title Win Was One Of The Coolest Moments Of My Life’
Defending the Title
Priest’s reign lasted 119 days, and he defended the title against a genuinely credible list of challengers, including Jey Uso and Drew McIntyre, in a rematch at Clash at the Castle: Scotland.
This was due to an assist from CM Punk and Seth Rollins himself at Money in the Bank in Toronto, again with Punk’s help neutralizing a returning McIntyre’s interference.
Priest was candid about wanting to beat Rollins on his own merits rather than relying on outside help, acknowledging the respect he held for how impressive Rollins’s own championship run had been.
The Balor Betrayal
Priest’s title reign ended at SummerSlam 2024 against Gunther, in a match that became defined less by the in-ring action than by the collapse of The Judgment Day itself.
With Priest seemingly seconds from retaining after a South of Heaven chokeslam, Finn Bálor — his own tag team partner and longtime ally — placed Gunther’s foot on the bottom rope from ringside, breaking the pin.
The distraction gave Gunther the opening to lock in a rear naked choke, and the resulting submission ended Priest’s reign and handed Gunther his first world championship.
The betrayal didn’t come entirely out of nowhere. The ongoing tension between Priest and Bálor had been building for months within Judgement Day.
It was caused by Priest’s hesitation to cash in his Money in the Bank contract on Bálor’s behalf during Bálor’s earlier Intercontinental Championship runs. Bálor showed no remorse afterward, and the fallout compounded an already rough night for the group.
Dominik Mysterio had betrayed Rhea Ripley earlier on the same card, aligning with Liv Morgan. Priest got a measure of revenge that October at Bad Blood, beating Bálor cleanly in a singles match.
Though the two remained locked in an on-and-off program for months afterward, including a Survivor Series WarGames rematch against Gunther, where Bálor interfered yet again, only to be shut down by Gunther himself, who wanted no help winning clean.
A New Partnership and Present Day
With The Judgment Day fractured, Priest found a new ally in R-Truth, and the pairing — nicknamed “Wepa Up” by fans — turned into a genuinely successful tag team, winning the WWE Tag Team Championship together in March 2026 by beating The MFTs (Tama Tonga and JC Mateo) on SmackDown.
The reign has given Priest a lighter, more comedic on-screen dynamic compared to his Judgment Day villain run, while still keeping him positioned as a top act on the blue brand.
Priest’s growth has continued throughout 2026. In July of 2026, he made a surprise appearance in AAA. He was introduced by general manager Rey Mysterio as the promotion’s newest addition.
At the time, Priest was also an active WWE Tag Team Champion alongside R-Truth on SmackDown. This was an unusual crossover for an active WWE wrestler to appear and compete in AAA. He delivered his introductory promo in Spanish, making it clear that he intended to chase the AAA gold.
The Résumé So Far
Across his career, Priest has held the NXT North American Championship, the WWE United States Championship, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, a Money in the Bank briefcase, and multiple reigns as a tag team champion across both Raw and SmackDown brands, in addition to his ROH World Television Championship reign from his independent years.
He remains an active, prominent presence on SmackDown as of mid-2026, with a career that’s covered nearly every rung of the professional wrestling ladder from a heavyset independent journeyman wrestling in half-empty gyms to a main-event fixture whose entrance still gets one of the bigger reactions on WWE programming.
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