New York City, raised in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico · Independents · ROH · NXT · WWE · 2005–present
Damian Priest waited nineteen years for the twenty seconds that define him. A New Yorker raised in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, he debuted on the East Coast independents in 2005, spent 2015 to 2018 in Ring of Honor as Punishment Martinez, and did not reach WWE's main roster until he was 38. 118days as World Heavyweight Champion in 2024, from a WrestleMania XL cash-in to the SummerSlam loss against GuntherThen it compounded fast: the United States Championship for 191 days in 2021–22, the Money in the Bank briefcase in 2023, and the cash-in at WrestleMania XL on April 7, 2024 — moments after Drew McIntyre had won the World Heavyweight Championship and stopped to taunt CM Punk — that made him champion for 118 days. He is also a three-time tag team champion across two partners who could not be less alike: two reigns with Finn Balor at the Judgment Day's peak, and one in 2026 with R-Truth.
The Judgment Day is the spine of the middle of the career. He joined at WrestleMania 38 in April 2022 as Edge's first recruit, helped vote Edge out that June, and spent two years as the group's enforcer and tag champion — until the group expelled him in August 2024, days after Gunther took the world title off him at SummerSlam. 3tag team championship reigns — two with Finn Balor in the Judgment Day, one with R-Truth in 2026The SmackDown move followed on January 24, 2025, and with it the two long feuds of his post-Judgment Day life: Drew McIntyre — the Sin City Street Fight loss at WrestleMania 41 on April 20, 2025, answered with the steel cage win at Saturday Night's Main Event on May 24 — and Aleister Black, a half-year blood feud that ran from a Last Man Standing loss on October 10, 2025 to the ambulance-match win that ended it on January 2, 2026.
The 2026 chapter is the odd couple. Paired with the 54-year-old R-Truth, he won the WWE Tag Team Championship from the MFT's Tama Tonga and JC Mateo on the March 20 SmackDown — R-Truth pinning Mateo with, of all things, John Cena's Attitude Adjustment — and held it 147 days through the MFT's collapse, including the June 19 defense Solo Sikoa's interference wrecked for the challengers. 147days as WWE Tag Team Champions with R-Truth in 2026, ended by the Tongas’ triple-threat win on August 14Tama and Talla Tonga took the titles back in a triple threat with the War Raiders on August 14, 2026 and beat Priest and R-Truth clean in the rematch a week later, hitting the Red Cross on Truth. Wrestling Inc.'s report of the rematch noted Priest was “noticeably unhappy with his partner” afterward — but still helped him up. As of August 31, 2026 he holds no championship, and whether the partnership survives September is the question his television time is being spent on.
Eighteen documented bouts — the title changes, the cash-in, and the feud bookends. This is a curated ledger, not a career count, and no career win–loss total is published because none is verified. The February 28, 2022 United States title loss follows WWE's own video archive and the 191-day reign arithmetic rather than the February 21 date some summaries carry. Filter by match type, tap any column header to sort, and turn spoilers on to reveal results.
0-0
The book is kayfabe protected
| Res | Date | Promo | Event | Opponent(s) | Stipulation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | 2020-08-22 | WWE | NXT TakeOver XXX | The five-man ladder field | Ladder match — first title | NXT North American Championship |
| L | 2020-10-28 | WWE | NXT Halloween Havoc | Johnny Gargano | Devil's Playground match — the reign ends | NXT North American Championship |
| W | 2021-04-10 | WWE | WrestleMania 37 Night 1 | The Miz & John Morrison | Tag — with Bad Bunny | — |
| W | 2021-08-21 | WWE | SummerSlam — Las Vegas | Sheamus | Singles — first main-roster title | WWE United States Championship |
| L | 2022-02-28 | WWE | Raw | Finn Balor | Singles — the 191-day reign ends; Priest snaps after | WWE United States Championship |
| W | 2023-07-01 | WWE | Money in the Bank — London | The six-man ladder field | Money in the Bank ladder match | — |
| W | 2023-09-02 | WWE | Payback | Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn | Tag — with Finn Balor | Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship |
| W | 2024-04-07 | WWE | WrestleMania XL Night 2 | Drew McIntyre | Money in the Bank cash-in — minutes after McIntyre won the title | World Heavyweight Championship |
| W | 2024-07-06 | WWE | Money in the Bank — Toronto | Gunther | Singles — retains against the King of the Ring | World Heavyweight Championship |
| L | 2024-08-03 | WWE | SummerSlam — Cleveland | Gunther | Singles — the 118-day reign ends | World Heavyweight Championship |
| L | 2025-04-20 | WWE | WrestleMania 41 Night 2 | Drew McIntyre | Sin City Street Fight | — |
| W | 2025-05-24 | WWE | Saturday Night's Main Event | Drew McIntyre | Steel cage — ends the feud | — |
| L | 2025-10-10 | WWE | SmackDown | Aleister Black | Last Man Standing — Zelina Vega interferes | — |
| W | 2026-01-02 | WWE | SmackDown | Aleister Black | Ambulance match — ends the feud | — |
| W | 2026-03-20 | WWE | SmackDown | The MFT (Tama Tonga & JC Mateo) | Tag — with R-Truth; Truth pins Mateo | WWE Tag Team Championship |
| W | 2026-06-19 | WWE | SmackDown | Tama Tonga & Talla Tonga | Tag — retain; Solo Sikoa's interference splinters the MFT | WWE Tag Team Championship |
| L | 2026-08-14 | WWE | SmackDown | The MFTs (Tama Tonga & Talla Tonga) | Triple threat with The War Raiders — the 147-day reign ends | WWE Tag Team Championship |
| L | 2026-08-21 | WWE | SmackDown | The MFTs (Tama Tonga & Talla Tonga) | Rematch — the Tongas hit the Red Cross on R-Truth | WWE Tag Team Championship |
| No career-defining bouts match this filter. See them in the full record | ||||||
9 of 18 matches shown
Curated ledger · documented highlights · some bouts are not listed
The bouts the reputation rests on. No star ratings are printed because none were verified against Observer archives in this pass — these are selected for what they meant, not how they were scored.
vs Drew McIntyre
Money in the Bank cash-in — the World Heavyweight Championship in under a minute
vs Gunther
World Heavyweight Championship — the 118-day reign ends by technical submission
vs Gunther
World Heavyweight Championship — the defense he won before the rematch he lost
vs Drew McIntyre
Sin City Street Fight — the feud WWE built two stipulation matches to finish
Six WWE championship reigns and a Ring of Honor run under another name. Both of his singles titles ended in matches that changed his direction: the US loss triggered the heel turn, the world title loss triggered his expulsion from the Judgment Day.
April 7, 2024 – August 3, 2024 · won by Money in the Bank cash-in on Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania XL, lost to Gunther at SummerSlam by technical submission · 118 days
August 21, 2021 – February 28, 2022 · def. Sheamus at SummerSlam, lost to Finn Balor on Raw · 191 days · a mirrored summary's February 21 end date contradicts its own reign length and is not published here
March 20, 2026 – August 14, 2026 · won with R-Truth from the MFT's Tama Tonga and JC Mateo on SmackDown, lost to Tama and Talla Tonga in a triple threat with the War Raiders · 147 days
With Finn Balor · won from Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn at Payback on September 2, 2023; the reigns bracket a brief October 2023 interruption by Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso, whose exact regain date was not re-verified in this pass; ended in the WrestleMania XL Night 1 six-pack ladder match on April 6, 2024
August 22, 2020 – October 28, 2020 · won the TakeOver XXX ladder match, lost to Johnny Gargano in a Devil's Playground match
As Punishment Martinez · reign dates not verified in this pass and not invented
One faction, three phases: recruit, enforcer, expelled champion.
Edge, Damian Priest, Rhea Ripley
Priest was the founding recruit, joining Edge at WrestleMania 38 in April 2022. The recruitment pitch was rebirth for a stalled career, and it worked in the least expected way: within two months, Priest, Ripley and new arrival Finn Balor voted Edge out of his own group.
Damian Priest, Finn Balor, Rhea Ripley, Dominik Mysterio, JD McDonagh
The group's imperial phase, with Priest as its heavy and half of its tag championship: two Undisputed WWE Tag Team title reigns with Balor from September 2023 to April 2024, plus the Money in the Bank briefcase he carried for nine months. The internal tension — Balor eyeing the briefcase, Priest eyeing the exits — was the best long-form character work of the group's run.
Priest out; Balor, Mysterio, McDonagh, Morgan, Rodriguez in
Days after Gunther beat him at SummerSlam 2024, the Judgment Day threw him out, with Finn Balor leading the coup — the exact mirror of what they had done to Edge. Priest left as a babyface, feuded with the group into the autumn, and moved to SmackDown on January 24, 2025.
Damian Priest, R-Truth
Not a faction — a comedy-and-violence tag team that won real gold. Truth's Attitude Adjustment on JC Mateo won the WWE Tag Team Championship on March 20, 2026; the pair held it 147 days. Since losing the titles and the August 21 rematch, Priest's frustration with his partner has been the on-screen story, and WWE reporting has openly speculated about a heel turn.
Three names in twenty-one years: Damian Martinez on the early independents → Punishment Martinez in Ring of Honor (2015–2018) → Damian Priest from NXT in 2018 onward.
A decade of East Coast independents before anyone was watching — the long apprenticeship that makes him one of the latest bloomers among modern WWE champions.
The breakout: a 6'5" agile heavy in ROH, where he became World Television Champion. The silhouette of the WWE character — gothic, long-limbed, spin-kick-heavy — was built here.
Signed in 2018, rebuilt in NXT, main roster from February 1, 2021 with a win over The Miz. The archer imagery, the “live forever” catchphrase and the rock-star aura carried him from Bad Bunny's WrestleMania partner to world champion inside four years.
Nineteen years to the main roster, then the fastest four years of his life.
Starts on the East Coast independents at 23.
Debuts as Punishment Martinez; becomes ROH World Television Champion before leaving for WWE.
Wins the TakeOver XXX ladder match on August 22; loses the title to Johnny Gargano at Halloween Havoc on October 28.
Debuts February 1 beating The Miz; wins the WrestleMania 37 tag with Bad Bunny on April 10; beats Sheamus for the United States Championship at SummerSlam on August 21.
Loses the US title to Finn Balor on February 28 and turns; joins Edge's Judgment Day at WrestleMania 38; helps vote Edge out in June.
Wins the briefcase in London on July 1; wins the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship with Balor at Payback on September 2.
Cashes in on Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania XL on April 7; retains against Gunther at Money in the Bank on July 6; loses to Gunther at SummerSlam on August 3 and is thrown out of the Judgment Day days later.
Moves to SmackDown January 24; loses the WrestleMania 41 street fight to McIntyre on April 20 but wins the May 24 steel cage; opens the Aleister Black blood feud, losing the October 10 Last Man Standing match.
Closes the Black feud in the January 2 ambulance match; wins the WWE Tag Team Championship with R-Truth on March 20; loses it to the Tongas on August 14 and the rematch on August 21.
Who he went to war with.
The defining championship rivalry: Priest beat him at Money in the Bank on July 6, 2024 in Toronto, and Gunther took the World Heavyweight Championship by technical submission at SummerSlam on August 3 — the loss that ended the 118-day reign and, within days, his Judgment Day membership.
Two years of unfinished business in three stipulations. Priest's WrestleMania XL cash-in stole the title McIntyre had held for five minutes; McIntyre took the WrestleMania 41 Sin City Street Fight on April 20, 2025; Priest closed it inside a steel cage at Saturday Night's Main Event on May 24, 2025.
The blood feud of his SmackDown run, from June 2025 to January 2026. Black took the Last Man Standing match on October 10, 2025 with Zelina Vega's help; Priest ended it by winning the ambulance match on the January 2, 2026 SmackDown.
Partner and nemesis in alternating order: Balor took his US title on February 28, 2022 and triggered the heel turn; then they held the tag titles together twice; then Balor led the vote that expelled him in August 2024. No WWE relationship of his has produced more plot.
The 2026 tag rivalry. Priest and R-Truth beat Tama Tonga and JC Mateo for the titles on March 20, retained against the Tongas on June 19 when Solo Sikoa's interference backfired on his own men, then lost the titles in the August 14 triple threat and the August 21 rematch — with Haku at ringside and the Red Cross double powerbomb as the full stop.
Thin by design — the verified list is short, and nothing is added to pad it.
The career documentary premiered August 2, 2024 at the Damian Priest Live event at The Agora in Cleveland during SummerSlam weekend, with a panel alongside Rhea Ripley and Dominik Mysterio and interviews with Triple H, The Undertaker and Paul Heyman.
Tag partner for Bad Bunny's celebrated WrestleMania 37 match against The Miz and John Morrison — the crossover that put Priest in front of a global non-wrestling audience two months into his main-roster run.
Playable in the current WWE 2K entries; his first appearance in the series was not verified in this pass and is not claimed.
The records, stated the way the sources state them — with the one bad date in circulation corrected.
April 7, 2024, WrestleMania XL Night 2 — cashed in Money in the Bank on Drew McIntyre minutes after McIntyre beat Seth Rollins for the title and stopped to taunt CM Punk. Held it 118 days, with a successful defense against Gunther at Money in the Bank before the SummerSlam rematch went the other way.
August 21, 2021 to February 28, 2022, from beating Sheamus at SummerSlam to losing to Finn Balor on Raw. The February 21 end date carried by one mirrored summary contradicts its own 191-day figure and WWE's video archive, and is not published anywhere on this page.
Two Undisputed WWE Tag Team reigns with Finn Balor (2023-24) and the 147-day WWE Tag Team reign with R-Truth (March 20 to August 14, 2026). Wrestling Inc. notes the R-Truth reign made both men three-time tag champions.
The NXT North American Championship at TakeOver XXX on August 22, 2020, and the Money in the Bank briefcase in London on July 1, 2023.
The July 6, 2024 Money in the Bank defense is one of the few singles losses in Gunther's 2024, and the SummerSlam reversal four weeks later is the loss Priest's entire second act pivots on.
Joined Edge at WrestleMania 38, helped vote Edge out two months later, and was himself voted out in August 2024. The group has now expelled two of its own founders; Priest is both of them minus one.
Debuted 2005; first main-roster title August 2021; world champion April 2024, at 41 — one of the oldest first-time world champions of WWE's modern era. His age at the cash-in is computed from his September 26, 1982 birth date.
Deliberately absent: a career win-loss total, which no source verifies; exact dates for the Ring of Honor and October 2023 tag-title-regain reigns, which were not re-verified in this pass; and social handles, which were not verified either.
Follow, connect and verify.
By cashing in Money in the Bank at WrestleMania XL on April 7, 2024. Drew McIntyre had just beaten Seth Rollins for the title and paused to taunt CM Punk at ringside; Punk attacked McIntyre, Priest's music hit, and the cash-in match was over in under a minute. He held the championship for 118 days, beating Gunther at Money in the Bank on July 6 before losing it to him at SummerSlam on August 3, 2024 by technical submission.
Because the group ate its founder a second time. Priest was Edge's first recruit at WrestleMania 38, helped vote Edge out in June 2022, and became the stable's enforcer and tag champion. Days after Gunther beat him for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam 2024, the Judgment Day — with Finn Balor at the front — expelled him exactly as he had helped expel Edge. He left as a babyface and moved to SmackDown on January 24, 2025.
No. The 147-day reign ended on the August 14, 2026 SmackDown, when the MFTs — Tama Tonga and Talla Tonga, with their father Haku at ringside — won a triple threat that also involved the War Raiders, pinning R-Truth after the Red Cross double powerbomb. Priest and Truth got the rematch a week later on August 21 and lost that too. Priest was visibly frustrated with his partner afterward, and the state of the team is the current story.
February 28, 2022, to Finn Balor on Raw. A widely mirrored career summary says February 21 while also calling it a 191-day reign — but 191 days from the August 21, 2021 SummerSlam win is February 28, and WWE's own video archive dates the footage of the loss, and of Priest snapping afterward, to February 28. The snap matters more than the date: it started the heel run that led to the Judgment Day.
Luis Martinez, born September 26, 1982 in New York City and raised in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. He debuted in 2005, wrestled Ring of Honor as Punishment Martinez from 2015 to 2018 and became ROH World Television Champion, then signed with WWE in 2018. The finisher, South of Heaven, is named after the Slayer album — the metal obsession is genuine, not gimmick.