{"id":163358,"date":"2026-06-20T01:14:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T05:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=163358"},"modified":"2026-06-20T01:16:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T05:16:37","slug":"would-damian-priest-and-r-truth-retain-the-wwe-tag-team-championships-against-mft-on-6-19-smackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/06\/20\/would-damian-priest-and-r-truth-retain-the-wwe-tag-team-championships-against-mft-on-6-19-smackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Damian Priest and R-Truth Keep the WWE Tag Team Titles Against MFT on 6\/19 SmackDown?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For several months now, Damian Priest and R-Truth have had their hands full with MFT. On the March 6, 2026 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, the pair won a tag team turmoil match to become the number one contenders for the WWE Tag Team Championships.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, they beat JC Mateo and Tama Tonga to become the new champions. But the MFT that lost the titles isn’t the same MFT today. Mateo and Tonga Loa were released<\/a> in late April, leaving the faction as Tama, Solo Sikoa, and Talla Tonga.<\/p>\n

Even though they lost members, they have still been going after Priest and R-Truth for the tag titles. For weeks now, they have been facing off against each other, especially when MFT injured R-Truth in May. But now he’s back in action at the perfect time. The June 19 SmackDown<\/a> saw him and Priest defend their WWE Tag Team Championships against Talla and Tama. Would they retain their titles, or would MFT take them back?<\/p>\n

A Sikoa Mistake Leads to a Retention for Priest and R-Truth<\/h2>\n

This championship rematch was inevitable once R-Truth returned. But while he was recovering, Priest faced MFT alone. He defeated Tama<\/a> on the night that R-Truth was announced not to be medically cleared. The next week, he lost to Sikoa. While this happened, all of them had to deal with Royce Keys.<\/p>\n

MFT saw him as an enemy, and Priest saw him as a distraction, even though he wanted to work with him. The two paired up in a loss against Talla and Tonga on the May 29 SmackDown, and Talla took care of Keys<\/a> two weeks ago. Now, R-Truth is back to take revenge on the men who injured him. Would that determination lead to them retaining their titles?<\/p>\n

\"WWE
A WWE SmackDown graphic featuring R-Truth and Damian Priest vs. MFT. (Photo Credit: WWE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The match<\/a> started with Priest and Talla circling each other and locking up. Talla pushed Priest into the turnbuckle, but lost his momentum when he ran into it. Priest then started punching him before ricocheting across the ring using the ropes. He hit him once more before he ran into him, sending him to the ground. The camera then panned to the current AAA World Tag Team Champions, Erik and Ivar, watching from a monitor backstage.<\/p>\n

Back in the ring, Talla gave Priest a headbutt before stomping him in the corner. He tagged in Tama, who continued the punches, but was sent down with a flying elbow when he tried to push Priest off the ropes. Priest punched him in the corner before tagging in R-Truth, who hit him and sent him down with two flying shoulder tackles. Then he hit him with the five knuckle shuffle and Talla with punches after he tried to enter the ring.<\/p>\n

Tama sent him over the ropes, then Talla kicked him to the ground. Talla then chokeslammed Priest when he tried to defend R-Truth. When they got back in the ring, R-Truth sent Tama down with a dropkick. Priest got tagged in and punched both men.<\/p>\n

\"WWE
A WWE SmackDown graphic featuring R-Truth and Damian Priest vs. MFT. (Photo Credit: WWE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He ran Tama into the turnbuckle, then hit a flatliner for the unsuccessful pinfall. Talla entered the ring, but quickly went over the ropes due to punches and a clothesline. Tama hit Priest with a snap neck breaker that sent both men to the mat.<\/p>\n

Sikoa then appeared, getting into an argument with Talla over being at ringside. Priest tagged R-Truth before running into Sikoa, which led to Talla getting sent into the ringpost after a failed chokeslam attempt. Tama then pulled Priest’s hair, which led to R-Truth rolling him up to retain their WWE Tag Team Championships.<\/p>\n

Sikoa was told to stay away, but showed up anyway and played a role in MFT losing the match. With this latest loss, could even more tension be brewing between the remaining members of MFT?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For several months now, Damian Priest and R-Truth have had their hands full with MFT. On the March 6, 2026 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, the pair won a tag team turmoil match to become the number one contenders for the WWE Tag Team Championships. Two weeks later, they beat JC Mateo and Tama Tonga […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5338,"featured_media":163246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,2192,4,3],"tags":[6558,9482,924],"class_list":["post-163358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-wrestling","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-damian-priest","tag-mft","tag-r-truth"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5338"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163358"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163364,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163358\/revisions\/163364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}