411mania Interviews: The Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels

Jeffrey Harris: It’s great to see you out here. I remember running into you last year at Comic-Con as well. Do you like to come to Comic-Con a lot?

Christopher Daniels: This is the second year I’ve come to Comic-Con. I’ve never had an opportunity to come to come out here just as a fan. But the last year, TNA had the show — the match at the roof of the Hard Rock, so I got to hang around for a couple days. And this time doing some signings with Mike Kingston from Headlocked and Josh Adams, a great artist. It gave me an opportunity to come out here and sort of spend some time looking at the things that I like which is comic books.

Jeffrey Harris: So you’re a huge fan of comics?

Christopher Daniels: I’m a huge Marvel Comics fan. I grew up reading Marvel Comics. I dabble a little bit in the DC, the Image, and the Darkhorse, but Marvel is usually my thing.

Jeffrey Harris: Who is your favorite Marvel character?

Christopher Daniels: From the get-go, I was always a Wolverine fan. I followed X-men from Chris Claremont, John Byrne, off and on throughout, when Jim Lee got on the title that was a big deal for me. Currently, right now, I read a lot of Avengers stuff with the big boom, the Heroic Age starting up. Anything that Brian Bendis writes, I’m a big fan of.

Jeffrey Harris: Tell us a little bit about the comic, Headlocked from Haven Distributors, and you wrote an introduction for the book, right?

Christopher Daniels: Yeah. Headlocked is Michael Kingston’s creation. It’s the story of an actor, a theatre student in college who goes to a wrestling show. He’s always had sort of a bad impression of what professional wrestling is until he goes to a show and realizes it’s a performance art in the same way that acting is and he comes to appreciate professional wrestling and decides that he wants to try and get into it. And then the story is basically the difficulties that he goes through trying to become a professional wrestler. It’s been out for a while. What I wrote the introduction to, Mike Kingston put all the issues of “The Tryout”, 1-3, and “A Work of Art” single shot, he put them all together in a trade paperback. Jerry [“The King”] Lawler drew the cover of that, and I wrote the introduction to the trade paperback.

Jeffrey Harris: What do you think of the way wrestling has evolved? Because now, nothing is a secret anymore. Everyone has an internet connection. And then there are movies like The Wrestler which was a big movie and won a lot of awards. What do you think of how things have changed since you started in the early ’90’s?

Christopher Daniels: I feel like it’s not always a good thing that everybody sort of knows the — like the ability to pull the curtain back and see the inner-workings of stuff, it sort of takes a lot of the magic away so as a professional wrestler I try not to — I do Twitter, but I try not to talk about the things that go on in the locker rooms. That’s not really part of the show. And I feel like if people were to take wrestling at face value, it might be a little more enjoyable to them. But everybody is worried about analyzing and trying to get to the bottom of the secrets. And I feel like some times that takes away from the enjoyment of it.

Jeffrey Harris: Where are you working right now and where can fans watch you wrestle at the moment?

Christopher Daniels: Right now I’m doing lots of Ring of Honor. I did the last set of TV tapings for them. I’m also doing stuff up in Japan in September for Antonio Inoki’s federation [IGF]. I’m going to Australia in November for a tour. I usually try to keep everybody up to date on where I’m going to be on my Twitter page which is @FACDaniels.

Jeffrey Harris: Is smashing that punk Tyler Black and taking his ROH world title on your radar at all?

Christopher Daniels: Definitely wrestling Tyler Black is on my radar. I wrestled him once last weekend for the first time, a 20 minute draw. I don’t think it will be the last time he and I wrestle each other. But he’s definitely somebody to watch.

Jeffrey Harris: You need to humble that green rookie.

Christopher Daniels: I think I can get the title off of him though. Yeah.

Jeffrey Harris: I love the ROH TV show. What do you think of the TV show and even though its only one hour, for the most part it’s just great wrestling for an hour which can’t really see that much on the other cable channels right now?

Christopher Daniels: I think that’s always been their take on it. It’s always been the wrestling first and all else second. And Jim Cornette had a really great line about it, he said, “This isn’t sports entertainment, it’s an entertaining sport.” So that’s always been what they’ve excelled at, giving the fans the wrestling. And so HDNet doing limited commercials for the television show; it really is the most wrestling in an hour you’re going to get. I’m a big fan of the show.

Jeffrey Harris: Late last year TNA was in a bit of a holding pattern and you were still working in TNA.

Christopher Daniels: Right.

Jeffrey Harris: There was a time when AJ Styles was champion and we were seeing him in the main events with guys like you and Samoa Joe. All of you are great wrestlers and had been in TNA for a long time. It was great to see you in the main event going for the world title. And after Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff came in, they made changes. They brought a lot of their guys in. They got showcased on television a lot more, and it felt like you were being phased out. Do you have any comment on that?

Christopher Daniels: Its just the decisions they made. I was sort of at the mercy of the decision making process. I wish it had gone different for me. I actually had some very good conversations with Eric Bischoff when we were there in terms of characterization and possible directions for Christopher Daniels. But in the end, the decisions that TNA made, I’m living with them and I’m landing on my feet and I’m staying busy and that’s the most important thing for me.

Jeffrey Harris: Would you be open to returning to TNA?

Christopher Daniels: Yeah. I have nothing but good memories of the stuff I did in TNA. And all my friends are there. And I want TNA to work. I want TNA to succeed, and I’d be happy to be a part of that.

Jeffrey Harris: I love the BME, the Best Moonsault Ever. How did you come up with that variation of the move?

Christopher Daniels: I met a guy in Chicago that wrestled for lucha libre or he’d done some stuff in Mexico, and he showed me how to go from the second rope to the top rope, and I just had to incorporate that into the moonsault for me. And I’m lucky that I’m the only guy I know of that does that.

Jeffrey Harris: I’m really fond of the Fallen Angel character and that of the sinister minister. How did you come into that?

Christopher Daniels: The Fallen Angel character, it was inspired by Goldust just because he took a sort of topic that no matter who you were in the world, you had a strong feeling about your sexuality. And I took a step back and I said, “well what other things in life would people of all roads of life have a strong opinion of? And that’s religion.” And so, that’s what I did. I decided to do something based on like a David Koresh character, a cult leader. Someone who felt like he was a leader of men. Someone who felt like he was God’s gift to wrestling. So that’s where it came from.

Jeffrey Harris: I remember one of the best promos ever was when TNA was being broadcast online. And it right before the move to SpikeTV. You were having this awesome run as X division champion and right before your legendary triple threat with AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, you had the belt and you were talking about this new era about to start in TNA and how important it was. That was amazing. Do you remember that promo at all because it felt like you got to another level there?

Christopher Daniels: Well I was very proud of that promo. It’s one of the things I try to send out when I talk about the stuff that I can do on a microphone. And yeah, I was really very proud of that promo. I wish it had got more people watching or more people had seen it just because as you said, we were sort of on the internet when that went down.

Jeffrey Harris: You’ve had so many classic matches over the years. I remember the title match you had with Bryan Danielson in ROH in 2005. There are the countless classics with AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. Do you have a favorite guy you like to work with? Like anytime you go in the ring, you think “I know we’re going to have a great match.” And I don’t mean like a 5* match of the year candidate, but an opponent you clicked really well with?

Christopher Daniels: Always AJ. Always Joe. Frankie Kazarian is that same way. We always did good work together because we sort of had the same mentality about what we think makes a match good, and so all four of us have always worked well together.

Jeffrey Harris: Do you own any of your own action figures?

Christopher Daniels: I do actually. And I think every wrestler in this world has their own action figure. So that was a big deal, getting your own action figure.

Jeffrey Harris: Is there anyone you would like to thank or give a shout out to?

Christopher Daniels: Just the fans. If it wasn’t for the people that followed my career, the people that watch me in ROH, the people that watch me in TNA, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I got a lot of lucky breaks, and I’m very fortunate that my fanbase has been very supportive of me no matter where I was. So if it wasn’t for them, you know where would I be? So I appreciate all the support for the internet fans and the guys that are watching the television shows, it means a lot.

Jeffrey Harris: Thank you so much. It was great to speak with you.

Christopher Daniels: Thanks man.