During a recent appearance on the “After the Bell with Corey Graves” podcast, WWE Superstar Damian Priest commented on learning his promo skills from The Miz, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On learning promo skills from The Miz and other WWE veterans: “”I couldn’t ask for a better way to segue from NXT to Monday Night RAW than working with The Miz. He just knows how to be important. He knows how to be front and center and be a star. Just being in the ring with him, I can feed off that stuff and learn. Watching him do things, I’m like, ‘I should probably do it that way.’ I’ll tell you one thing, the mic. I think for me, the most uncomfortable thing is holding a microphone and speaking to the WWE Universe. With him, I see how his flow goes and how he breaks and how he makes sure that you understand every single word he says. Being in the ring when I was on Miz TV, I’m listening to him speak and seeing the way he delivers it. You can see when I start speaking and by the end, I’m more speaking how he does. I’m like, ‘This is why he’s so good.’ The way his speaking gear changes and he can deliver different types of emotions and levels. I picked that up and kept trying to improve on that. I would watch him a lot. While we were in the ring, I would just stare at his mouth and see how he was talking and his body language as well. That’s one of the many things I’ve picked up from him. And it’s the same thing with someone like Sheamus in seeing how physical and methodical he is. It’s not just nonstop. He has reasoning for it. [John] Morrison, his creativity and how he implements it into his matches and structure-wise on how he wants to do things. It makes me think, ‘Oh, I should re-think how I do things and make them flow better together.’ I keep grabbing things from these wizards and try to make it work for me.”
On his focus on staying positive and improving himself on the WWE main roster: “Obviously in this business, there are a lot of things that can pull you down and make you feel, whether it’s not welcome or just question yourself. For me, it’s how do you stay positive? How do you look at the bright side of things and keep moving forward? As long as you do that, I honestly believe that there’s no way you’re going to fail. If you just stay positive, just focus on the positive, and keep trying to improve every time. Any critique, improve on it. I’ve made that an actual must thing to do. After every match, every promo, or any type of performance, whatever critique I get from a producer, Vince [McMahon] himself, or even my peers, the next match or segment, I will literally try to implement that critique and try to work on it to make it better. I will then go to that same person and say, ‘How was that? Was that closer?’ I literally make it a focus. There’s the advice. Focus on actually improving every single time on at least one thing.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
