NXT North American Championship Damien Priest recently appeared on the Gorilla Position podcast. The former Ring of Honor star discussed a number of topics during his time on the show, including the Takeover ladder match where he won his North American Championship.

Damien Priest would reveal that he studied past ladder matches ahead of the bout at NXT Takeover: XXX. “Any great matches, it’s hard to pick one. It depends on the circumstance” Damien Priest began, describing which matches he looked at in particular. “Why they’re actually in the ladder match? I find that more intriguing than anything. The story behind it.”

“Then of course the match has to deliver you know” Priest would continue. “But those are a lot of the matches that I looked at [psychology wise]. A lot of Edge matches or Undertaker matches you know? Like putting them in a ‘different’ atmosphere, to see how they reacted. Now Edge obviously was a little bit more accustomed to it.”

Damien Priest would then reveal that he actually contacted Edge before the match for his input. Edge of course has a long history of ladder match experience; the first ever tag team ladder match, the WrestleMania 2000, Summerslam 2000 TLC and Unforgiven TLC match against John Cena to name a few.

“Seeing that we’re very similar size and style? I kind of watched a lot of his stuff to see how he [Edge] maneuvered” Priest stated. “How he structured stuff and his thought process going in. Then I got to talk to him about it and question him and ask him. I spent about an hour on the phone with him!”