The brutal reality of the wrestling road
If you think your long-distance relationship is tough because your partner lives three subway stops away, try dating in the WWE. The travel schedule is a relentless meat grinder that devours marriages and spits out shoot-promotions of divorce papers.
Raw and SmackDown stars spend most of the year flying from city to city, living out of rental cars and hotel lobbies. Meanwhile, NXT talent are anchored to Orlando, training at the Performance Center and working the Florida loop. It is a recipe for relationship disaster, which is why the news of Damian Priest and Lola Vice dating caught a lot of fans by surprise.
Priest is a main-event stud on Raw, pulling the brutal travel load of a top-tier champion. Vice is still tearing it up in Orlando, playing NXT's resident shoot-fighter who will knock you unconscious and hit a salsa dance over your limp body. Their daily realities are light-years apart.
Yet, according to Priest, this separation is actually the secret sauce that keeps them together. The former World Heavyweight Champion recently sat down on the Chris D Comedy podcast to explain the logistics.
Historically, wrestling couples on split schedules have a shelf life shorter than a local jobber facing Goldberg. The distance is a silent killer, and explaining to a civilian partner why you missed Thanksgiving because you were working a house show in Toledo is a fast track to couples therapy.
But Priest points out that dating a fellow worker changes the game. When Damian Priest and Lola Vice first started dating, they both knew the grind. No lectures, no guilt trips, no nonsense.
Raw vs. NXT: A logistical nightmare
Let us look at the cold, hard numbers. A main-roster heavyweight like Priest is on the road for roughly 200 days a year, bouncing between arenas, airports, and overseas tours. Lola Vice is based in Orlando, training daily at the Performance Center and working in front of an 800-seat studio audience at the Capitol Wrestling Center.
They do not share a locker room. They do not share a rental car. They live on completely different planets in the WWE hierarchy.
But Priest explained that this split schedule is actually their secret weapon. Sitting down with Chris Distefano on the Chris D Comedy podcast, the Raw superstar laid out how they survive the distance.
“So she’s a wrestler, too. So we don’t have the same exact schedule, but sometimes they coincide. And that’s cool because then it’s just easier, you know, we’re just around.”
It sounds simple, but it is a massive departure from the usual wrestling relationship drama. When your partner is also taking bumps for a living, the guilt-trip texts disappear. There are no angry messages at 2:00 AM asking why you are still at the building.
She knows you are stuck in the locker room waiting for the main event to finish so you can catch a red-eye to the next city. That kind of mutual understanding is worth its weight in gold.
The road is only half the battle. NXT is a high-stress pressure cooker where young talent fight tooth and nail just to get on television.
Lola Vice, a former Bellator MMA standout, has been on a rocket ship since she arrived, but the developmental grind is no joke. Priest, who survived the NXT developmental system himself, knows exactly what she is dealing with. He does not need a detailed explanation of why she is too exhausted to talk after a grueling six-hour session at the Performance Center.
The graveyard of on-screen WWE romances
Of course, because wrestling fans cannot help themselves, the internet is already screaming for WWE to put them on television together. Please, spare us.
WWE has a long history of taking real-life couples, putting them on TV, and watching their heat evaporate faster than a glass of water in the Mojave Desert. Remember in 2019 when creative paired Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch on-screen? It was a cringe-inducing disaster that stripped Becky of her badass aura and made Seth look like a doting sidekick.
Real chemistry is notoriously hard to translate into a scripted weekly drama. The second the corporate writers get involved, they turn genuine connections into cheesy, eye-rolling soap operas.
Calling Lola Vice up to the main roster just to be Damian Priest's girlfriend would be a massive creative failure. Priest is built as a lone-wolf destroyer, and Vice is a rising star who needs to establish her own legacy as a dangerous combatant, not a trophy on someone else's shoulder.
Thankfully, Priest is not a rookie who is easily blinded by the spotlight. He knows the danger of the corporate romance angle.
In past interviews, he made it clear he would only bring their relationship to TV under strict conditions. He wants to make sure it actually helps the show, rather than just serving as a cheap ratings stunt that stalls their individual career momentum.
“I think, especially now with social media, the show Unreal, and everything in between—if it benefits the show, I’m all for it. All that stuff works, you know—especially if it’s not forced, and if it’s done the right way, I’m all for it. And we’ve talked about it, and it’s like—it’s possible one day.”
This is the only logical take. Right now, Lola Vice needs Orlando.
She has the physical tools, the legitimate fighting background, and the raw charisma to be a monster in the women's division, but she needs room to breathe. Dragging her into a main roster story with a top star like Priest too soon is a great way to stunt her growth and label her as an accessory.
Why this setup actually keeps them sane
The professional wrestling life is a lonely road. You spend half your life in airports, drinking trash coffee in rental cars, and sleeping in sterile hotel rooms.
Having a partner at home who knows the exact physical toll of a hard landing and the mental exhaustion of creative frustration is a cheat code. Priest made it clear that their time apart is not a source of friction, but a healthy buffer.
“But it comes with it. And I think it’s easier because she’s in the business and she understands because she’s doing it. So it’s the same thing. She goes on the road and I’m home and I don’t see her like she’s away. So it’s kind of cool because I understand.”
That level of maturity is a rare commodity in a locker room full of massive egos and deep-seated insecurities. Priest is a guy who grinded on the indies as Punishment Martinez before he ever smelled a WWE contract.
He knows how fragile this success is. Having a partner who is completely focused on building her own brand means they can lift each other up rather than competing for the spotlight.
It also means that when they do get a few days together, it is not spent bickering over calendar dates. They can actually shut their brains off and rest. As Priest explained to Distefano, the lack of resentment makes their limited downtime peaceful.
“So we don’t have that issue that I would think other couples would have where it’s like, ‘Well, you’re never home.’ It’s like, well, this is the job. At least she gets it. And when we do have time together, we’re perfectly happy. You know what I mean?”
They are not the first wrestling couple to try and navigate the split-schedule minefield. Superstars like Rhea Ripley and Buddy Matthews have managed relationships across different brands and promotions.
It requires an absolute mountain of trust and zero professional jealousy. In an industry where everyone is constantly paranoid about their spot, keeping a relationship healthy is a Herculean task.
The danger of the corporate spotlight
But let us be real for a second—the corporate temptation is always lurking. WWE loves nothing more than monetizing a real-life romance.
The second a couple gets hot on social media, the writers start licking their chops. We saw it with Jimmy Uso and Naomi, and we saw it turn into an absolute trainwreck with Rusev and Lana. Historically, the creative team has no idea how to write a healthy couple, so they resort to cheap love triangles or trashy infidelity storylines.
Lola Vice is currently portraying a distinct shoot-fighter character in NXT. She is a dangerous athlete who will snap your arm in two, but she also loves to dance and show off her personality.
Pairing her with Priest would create an immediate tonal clash. Priest is a brooding, serious heavyweight who looks like he belongs in a biker gang. Vice is a vibrant, trash-talking Cuban dynamo. Mashing those two personas together on Raw would be a complete trainwreck.
Fortunately, the creative department in 2026 is run by people who seem to respect personal boundaries. Under the Triple H regime, superstars are actually allowed to have personal lives that do not serve as cheap television fodder.
If Priest and Vice can keep their romance behind closed doors, they stand a fighting chance of surviving the WWE meat grinder. They can build their careers independently, which is the best way to ensure they both reach the top.
At the end of the day, Priest and Vice are proving that you do not need to be joined at the hip to make a wrestling romance work. Sometimes, a little distance is the exact prescription needed to keep things fresh. By keeping their relationship private and focusing on their respective brands, they are setting themselves up for a long run at the top—both in the ring and out of it.
