Christopher Daniels Interview

[AmazingRen 0]

Alex Marvez interviews Christopher Daniels

 

Alex Marvez interviews Christopher Daniels

E-mail: [email protected]

One of the biggest negatives to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling discontinuing its Wednesday night pay-per-views is getting to see less of Christopher Daniels. One of the promotion’s bright spots in its two-plus years of operation, Daniels was finally gaining more exposure after proving himself as a top talent in Japan and on the U.S. independent scene. In the following interview, Daniels discusses his career track, his background in the business, and his match with Mike Modest on a January 2001 episode of WCW Monday Nitro that featured a botched Asai moonsault that almost resulted in a broken neck.

A link to my Daniels column for Scripps-Howard News Service is

available at http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.c...LING02-09-02-04.

 

Q: How does the upcoming schedule change made by TNA affect you?

Daniels: “Obviously it’s going to be different for us as far as the money because we’ll be doing different dates. We’re only scheduled now for taping on Tuesdays in Orlando. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s a step in the right direction. It will add to the longevity of TNA, and I for one am all for it. I know that guys may feel the short-term loss of money. But for the long term, if we can keep afloat and this keeps us going … We’re in it for the long haul. We’re not looking short term.”

 

Q: How do you reflect upon the time you’ve spent in TNA and how much do you think the exposure you’ve gotten has helped your career?

Daniels: “I don’t know. I feel like I’m doing as much indy work as I had before TNA, but I think it certainly helps as far as notoriety. I work for a wider range of promoters now. I had kind of set up a core group I would work for and had run with before TNA started. Now, I’m getting calls from a lot of promoters out that are using me based on the stuff they’ve seen or the fact I’m with TNA.”

 

Q: I’m sure having full-time work also added some stability to your life.

Daniels: “It’s a big positive. The fact I’m working every week takes a lot of pressure off. With the independents when I was running my own career and looking for my own work, I kind of had to beat the bushes and find enough dates to survive upon. Now that TNA is there take, it takes the pressure off me with the indy work I have to do or need to do to stay afloat.”

 

Q: How many shows do you figure you will have worked by the end of the year and what is the average month like for you?

Daniels: “Before, I tried to average two shows a weekend. Realistically, I do ok. At lots of places I can find double shots. In TNA, my schedule was usually working Wednesdays and Thursdays and then just a Saturday or sometimes a Friday and Saturday. But the pressure was not on me to have to get a Friday or Saturday. It just depends now how TNA handles my bookings. I just depend on what comes through them and whatever my schedule can handle. A lot of times, they try to help me out by not booking me on Fridays so I can get home and be with my wife and daughter.”

 

Q: I imagine that must be a welcome change.

Daniels: “It’s helped my family life with things being a lot more stable. The indy scene is just not very stable. Luckily, the promoters I’ve worked with I’ve kind of made a rapport with. They’re not the type of promoters who cancel shows for the most part. I’m lucky I’ve been used by TNA pretty much every week since I’ve been on the roster That stability has helped me financially and given me a piece of mind because I know I’ve got work and am going to get a paycheck.”

 

Q: What was your worst indy show experience?

Daniels: “Not too long ago, I did a show for a guy and let’s just say the person I worked with was not very good. It was just difficult working with a guy who wasn’t prepared to do anything even remotely close to professional wrestling. I had a couple of friends watch the match and laugh at my predicament. I was just trying to get through it without losing my cool or killing someone. But like I said, I’ve been very lucky with the promoters I’ve worked for. It’s very rare that I’ve been surprised by a bad venue or bad ring or bad opponent. Those times are very few and far between. I know of some stories and heard some stories, but I’ve been lucky.

 

Q: I’m sure it has struck you how weird it is that you’re a well-known performer in Japan but relatively anonymous here among mainstream fans in the U.S.?

Daniels: “I am honest about the amount of publicity and exposure I’ve had. If you’re a wrestling fan, you kind of know who I am. But as far as casual fans, there are not many places you can see me unless you saw me one time on Nitro. I hope that is going to change with the fact TNA has a show now on Fox Sports Net and hopefully the spotlight on TNA will shine brighter now. And I hope with the monthly pay-per-view shows we can build up and get more of an audience. I understand I’m not a household name. I know I’ve worked for the past 11 years and my name is not really on the tips of everyone’s tongue. But if you’re a real wrestling fan, you have an idea of who I am.”

 

Q: Your most watched match in the U.S. was obviously the one you had against Mike Modest on Nitro. How do you reflect upon that match and how lucky do you consider yourself not to have suffered serious injury?

Daniels: “The way that it went, I wish it had gone a little differently. But the truth of the matter is being hurt like I was and just the way events happened, it kind of helped me in the sense of getting a contract at the time. Part of the selling point for me backstage was the fact I was tough enough to gut it out in the match and finish it. It’s actually very funny. Not too long after, I met [ex-WCW front office employee] Mike Graham for the first time. He walked up, shook my hand and said, ‘You must be either the toughest SOB or the dumbest SOB I ever met.’ What could I say to that? I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. Of course, it hampered my performance but I was in a position where I knew I had to finish what I was there to do.”

 

Q: What was your injury exactly?

Daniels: “I never really checked to see how bad it really was. All I know was I lost feeling in my arm for close to six weeks. The very back of my shoulder and triceps and part of my hand were numb for almost two months. I had an MRI a month afterward, not to see how bad it was but in concert with a documentary I was doing. They were like, ‘If you go, can we would like to film this.’ I didn’t have the money to go and see the doctors and get the best care I could at that point. But I went and got it done. It was just a matter of a pinched nerve after all that and maybe a compressed disc, but nothing that would affect me too much in the long term. A compressed disc is not something to take lightly, but luckily I could work through it and slowly but surely got my feeling back. I’m still weak on that side of my body and have slight problems to this day. But that’s the nature of this business. You work through these things and keep moving.”

 

Q: How bummed were you when WCW folded and did you think about calling it quits afterward?

Daniels: “Nom I don’t think I ever looked at it as a sign I shouldn’t be doing this. That was the case with my first WCW contract as well. It’s just a matter of bad luck and bad timing, not on my part necessarily but just bad timing for me. It was never anything where I thought I should go get something more stable. It was just a matter of getting back on the road and in the ring and going at this from a different angle I always felt I had a good relationship with people at WWE. When WWE bought WCW, I had hoped because I had a developmental contract that it would roll over. When it didn’t, I figured I just had to keep trying to get that contract. Obviously, I haven’t gotten it through there. But if I went through some of the stuff that other people there have gone through, I might not be where I am today. When I didn’t get a break there, I went back to Japan and after going back got a break with New Japan. It all worked out in the end. It would have been easy to see the negative in the situation, but it was a lot better to get back on the horse and keep going.”

 

Q: Obviously, you’re one of the world’s most talented wrestlers. Why don’t you think WWE didn’t make a strong run at signing you?

Daniels: “I think the bottom line is that they’re only going to sign people who they feel can make money for them. For one reason or another, they don’t think they can make money with me. Personally, it’s a little stinging. You can have hurt feeling about it and be angry, but the fact they don’t see that in me only reinforces the fact TNA saw it in me and New Japan gave me an opportunity.

“And the bottom line is my goal when I got into this was to make a living wrestling. I’ve reached that goal and can almost say I’ve exceeded it because I make a healthy living and still have fun doing it. If that ever changes and it isn’t fun, I’ll start to think about getting out of it. But I don’t see that day coming.”

 

Q: What goals do you have left in the wresling business and how much longer do you see yourself doing this?

Daniels: “I honestly haven’t put a timeframe on it, as long as I remain healthy and still have fun with it. I’m lucky I’ve avoided any serious injury or anything long lasting. I don’t see end to what I’m doing yet. As far as goals, I still feel I have a lot to learn. I don’t think I know everything. My main goal right now is kind of to help TNA and do whatever I can to help it grow. That’s kind of where I planted my flag, so to speak.”

 

Q: I know you were an acting major [at Methodist College in Fayetteville, N.C.]. Do you have any desire to pursue an acting career?

Daniels: “I could, but I always felt if I was not prepared to give 100 percent it would be a waste of time. As long as I was pursuing wrestling, I wouldn’t be able to give 100 percent of myself to acting. I just dabble in it. I have a (casting) picture out and my agent calls around, but nine times out of 10 when they call me, I’m not able to do what they’re asking because I’m wrestling. At some point, I can go back into that. I really don’t know when. But when I’m finished wrestling, I would like to be a (road) agent. I feel one of my strengths is putting things (in a match) together.”

 

Q: Did anything you learned at Methodist College influence your Fallen Angel character?

Daniels: “Not really. There really wasn’t anything in a textbook or a class that I thought about. It really was from an idea of a David Koresh or the character in Seven that Kevin Spacey played with the idea no man is completely innocent and everyone has something they’re guilty of. I’ve said this before, but it’s like when Dustin Rhodes started the Goldust gimmick. No matter what your background was, everyone had a strong reaction to what he was doing. The one thing I thought everyone has is a strong reaction to a religious gimmick because everyone has their own beliefs. This is something that’s rough on everybody.”

 

Q: Did you ever return that robe to the church you borrowed it from for the Fallen Angel gimmick?

Daniels: “I’ve still got the robe. I may not be going to hell doing the gimmick, but stealing the robe and keeping it may be the breaking point.”

Alex Marvez's weekly pro wrestling column can be found in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Denver Rocky Mountain News, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Bakersfield Californian, Halifax Daily News, Corpus Christi Caller Times, Birmingham News, Knoxville News-Sentinel, Vero Beach (Fla.) News, Abeline Reporter, and a host of other newspapers that subscribe to the Scripps-Howard News Service.

 

 

It's nice to see that it's not all about the money with him and he is doing anything he can to help TNA in the long run.

[Guest whitemilesdavis]

So much for the thoery that TNA has been holding him hostage with that contract, unless they're holding a gun to his head, and making him like it.

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

Then again WMD, if he was pissed about it I doubt that Daniels would be unprofessional and bitch about it publically.

[Guest whitemilesdavis]

In that case, he's a sell-out, cause not only did he not bitch about it, he totally praised it.

[Guest The Last Free Voice]

So if He isn't happy with it (which he may be) he's a sell out for not being a jackass (Kid kash anyone) and being a professional about it? That sounds kinda dumb WMD. I mean... I don't quite know how to explain what I mean. LOL. It seems to me just to be his personalitiy... He just seems like a really nice and easy going guy... At least from what I've seen. It just doesn't seem like he'd be the type of guy to rip on a company he's behind.

[Guest whitemilesdavis]

All I'm saying is I think he's happy in TNA, and for some reason, most people find that hard to believe. You know, like he and AJ are being held to a contract against their will. He sounds content to me. He didn't have to rip them, but he goes totally overboard explaining how TNA is good for him. I think that's cool.

[Guest The Last Free Voice]

Well then we agree. Which makes me feel dumb for writing that incredible responce. HA!

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

I'm not one of the people that think that him and AJ are being held against their will WMD. But I have met Daniels on many occasions and he is VERY polite and VERY professional. I was just making the point that he seems like the kinda guy that would realize that nobody MADE him sign the contract and that he would be a professional and work the rest of it and not say anything publically. Thus, being the consumate professional..........

[Guest whitemilesdavis]

Sure, I've got no beef with that. So can we all agree that either the Kid Kash comments were a work, or that Kash is retarded?

[Guest The Last Free Voice]

I vote for Retarded.

[Michrome 0]

All you have to do is ask him what he thinks and he'll tell you. He is happy wiht having 2 steady dates per week because he has a family. Before he was trying for 2 dates per week on the indies, which isn't always possible. With the contract, he can pick and choose his spots. You can also ask him about the ROH thing in private, and he'll tell you what he tells everyone, that he thinks it's bullshit and he wants to come back but he can't afford to give up a contract with garaunteed dates. I don't think anyone ever said TNA was holding them against their will.

[Guest whitemilesdavis]

People made out like that, when the deal first went down.