WWE: 2021 WWE Draft Update, Damian Priest on Post-Wrestling Career Plans, Sami Zayn Contract Update

Sep 10, 2021

WWE Draft 2021 Plans Update

As noted before, WWE is currently working on plans for this year’s WWE Draft special to take place this Fall with October 1st and October 4th as the rumored likely dates.

The Mat Men Pro Wrestling’s Andrew Zarian reported that his sources confirmed that WWE currently has scheduled for this year’s Draft to take place starting on the October 1st episode of Friday Night SmackDown and concluding with the October 4th episode of WWE RAW.

KOTR and QOTR Kick off. The Finals takes place on Oct 21st in Saudi Arabia.
— Andrew Zarian (@AndrewZarian) September 9, 2021

Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert reported that the format nor if NXT will be involved for this year’s Draft special is currently not known.

Damian Priest Comments on Wanting to Move to Backstage Role for Post-In-Ring Wrestling Career

A recent episode of the Table Talk podcast had Damian Priest as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Priest’s thoughts on his current plans to transition to a backstage role once his in-ring career is over.

“But I’ll be honest, I did find a love for helping people at The [Monster] Factory because I never considered myself, you know, everybody says I trained people, I coach people. I like to — I helped people, you know, alongside other coaches because I don’t put myself in that category but, it made me find a fondness for that and at some point when whenever the day comes that I’m done, I would love to transition to like a coach or something because I mean, I have to stay in the business somehow. I love what I do, I love everything about this business so, that’s definitely something I enjoy. I really did enjoy helping and feeling that and I’m sure you feel it too D-Von [Dudley] with that feeling of creation, you know? And I’ve had talks with Hunter about that too in my time in NXT so that’s definitely something in the future that I hope to do.”

Priest also gave his thoughts about his call-up from NXT earlier this year and his recent pairing with Bad Bunny.

“So first and I’ve said this a few times but it’s just so funny because it really happened. So I’m in NXT. First of all, I just not too long before this, found out that my time in NXT was coming up which I was like, ‘Oh’ and I’m pretty sure Hunter was the one, ‘Hey, so you’re gonna be working with Bad Bunny. You’re gonna be working a program with Bad Bunny.’ In my head, I was just like, ‘How are you gonna name a wrestler Bad Bunny when there’s a Bad Bunny that’s a big deal?’ So I was like, ‘What wrestler is gonna be named Bad Bunny?’ You know, like what? And then he’s like, ‘No, that is the Bad Bunny. It’s the musician’ and I was like, ‘Oh that’s cool,’ because he’s a big deal. I know he’s a big deal, you know? So I was like, ‘Oh man’ but yes, there was that, ‘Oh wow,’ but this is like a really big deal and I’m the one that got chose to work side by side with him and I’m gonna help train him and do all this stuff and it was kind of like one of those things where oh man, if I mess up, I’m screwed huh? Like nobody needs to tell me that, I get it.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

Sami Zayn WWE Contract Status Update

Fightful Select reported that their sources within WWE stated that the recent rumors and reports about Sami Zayn’s contract expiring this Fall are not true. The same sources reportedly also were not willing to provide details about when Zayn’s contract is set to expire beyond saying “it’s not up in the fall.”

It was also reported that the rumors of Zayn’s contract expiring this Fall originated from their Contract Expirations list form on their website, which stated for Zayn that he had signed a three-year deal in April of 2019 “shortly before leaving for his operations, so with sick time so often added to the length of the contract, he still has about two and a half years left on his current deal.”