Post by CW .org .info .net on Mar 28, 2023 14:09:09 GMT -6
10/01/10
In the beginning
Daniels, who grew up in North Carolina, said he came to the Windy City for an entirely different pursuit than pro wrestling.
"I moved to Chicago when I was about 21 or 22 years old. I was a theater major in college, and I went to Chicago to break into the acting scene up there. And I wasn't having a whole lot of success," he said Sunday (9/26) shortly after arriving back in California after hitting the mat in Japan. "I always joked with my wife -- at the time she was my girlfriend, 'If this acting thing doesn't pan out, I can always go be a pro wrestling.' "
Daniels may have been joking at the time, but the end result was no joke.
"She took it to heart," he said of his girlfriend-at-the-time's reaction to his humor," and found a school up there, which was Windy City. And she arranged for me to have an interview with Sam DeCero, who is still the owner. I came out of there with a glazed look in my eyes and knew that this is really what I wanted to do. I started training in January 1993 and had my first match about three months later. And 17 years later, here we are."
That inaugural WCPW contest pitted Daniels teamed with Titan against the Manson Brothers (Ripper and Skull).
"I had my first two matches on the same day," Daniels recalled of the April 1993 in-ring face-offs. "Windy City taped television out of their studio, which was also their school. The next show I had was the third Battle of the Belts." And it was at that big show that Daniels won the WCPW lightweight title after beating Trevor Blanchard.
Giving back
Although some wrestlers may forget their roots, Daniels is all too happy to tout WCPW -- where he trained until 1996 -- whenever he can. Maybe that's because of the respect for the business that he learned from what is billed as the oldest independent pro wrestling promotion in Chicago and possibly the United States.
"I didn't really know it at the time until I moved away from Windy City how difficult it can be," he said. I didn't realize how good of a school Windy City was until I moved and started looking for other places to train when I moved to California. I just appreciated how much respect to have for the business that Sam ingrained in us. So I definitely came out of there not really understanding how much work it was until down the line, I saw a lot of guys who weren't willing to put in that effort and hard work and treated professional wrestling as a get-rich or get-famous (tool), something to get done quickly. All the time, I tell wrestlers who are going through training, 'You are going to get out of it what you put into it.' I definitely learned that work ethic at Windy City."
He credited WCPW's longevity to DeCero and vice president Mike Grachtner. "Those guys had a never-say-die attitude. They've worked hard to make Windy City last and try to make the school a success and the company itself a success, at great personal sacrifice for both of them. They really put their nose to the grindstone to make Windy City special and to keep it going. They are definitely the heart of Windy City."
DeCero may have helped to shape Daniels' future, but "The Fallen Angel" will team with Bailey Mannix against DeCero and Mike Anthony, another mentor of Daniels. That matchup will go down tonight (10/02) at Toyota Park, 7000 S. Harlem Ave., Bridgeview, during WCPW's big annual show. "It was a chance to get in there with the guys that started me on the path I am today. This gives me a chance to come back and give back to the school and do these shows," Daniels said of being booked on the card.
"It's going to be one of the best shows that Windy City puts on this year. It's an opportunity to see the stars of Windy City, the guys that are coming up through the school. This match that we're going to have is going to be a one-time-only thing. It will be an opportunity to see Sam DeCero return to the ring and to wrestle me. It will be a lot of fun. It's going to be a good time for families to come out to Toyota Park and see some good wrestling."
Speaking of Battle of the Belts, Daniels captured several WCPW titles including League, lightweight, middleweight and tag-team belts during his tenure with the company.
"Back when I started, I was a slight of a man. I was merely 180 pounds, and it was funny. Sam had a very regimented system in terms of the guys, in terms of weight classes. He saw that not everybody coming into the school was going to be 6-foot-5. He had a heavyweight title, a middleweight title and a lightweight title. That lightweight title ended up being filled with guys World Championship Wrestling would call cruiserweights, or a precursor to the X Division (in Total Nonstop Acting Wrestling). I spent most of my career (at WCPW) doing lightweight stuff. After I left and came back for them, I did a lot of stuff for the middleweight divison. I never got the heavyweight belt, though."
Creating characters
Daniels, who has been part of the rosters of TNA and Ring of Honor, has made his mark as the Fallen Angel, a moniker that came from the failed suggestion of the Fallen Angels to name a tag team with then-partner Kevin Quinn. "I liked it so much that I kept it as my nickname," Daniels said. "The actual persona of the priest character (came from when) I started watching Goldust, Dustin Rhodes' character in the World Wresting Federation. That character struck me as somebody that no matter who you were, you would get a strong reaction. Because no matter your background, you would have a strong sense of your own sexuality. And that's what that character sort of played on.
"So my thing was: 'What other subject will everybody have a strong feeling toward, no matter who they are?' And I thought religion would be the answer to that. I decided to come up with a character sort of based on David Koresh, based on cult leaders. I felt like this guy, the Fallen Angel, felt like he was god. He was God's gift to wrestling. I molded it after that and tinkered with it over the years, and turned it into what I basically did for the middle part of my TNA career."
But the Fallen Angel isn't the only character that Daniels brought to TNA on cable channel Spike. His lighter side came out in Curry Man. "That was actually a character I was given," he said. "I started working for a company in Japan called Michinoku Pro Wrestling. Every four years, they did a tournament caleld the Masked Man Tournament. I did a previous tour for them as myself, and they liked me so much and asked me to come back and do a character called Curry Man made specially for that tournament. The other guys came in, did the characters for the tournament and those characters disappeared. But Curry Man was popular enough and they liked my wrestling enough where they brought me back tour after tour to do the Curry Man character. I did Michinoku pro tours for about three years until I got signed by WCW back in 2000. And I returned to Japan and did tours for them as Curry Man and New Japan (Pro-Wrestling) from 2002 to 2004."
Daniels said there are positives both to playing a face and generating heel heat. "It's fun knowing that the fans are sort of behind you. I feel that energy when they are booing me or cheering me," he said. "At the same time, knowing you can come out from the curtain and have everybody just want to see you get your butt kicked, that sort of has an appeal as well. I've had the most fun being a heel. I feel like the best work I ever did was as a heel. The best guys I had a chance to wrestle with were the babyfaces, and I felt like I was a good foil for them."
Advice for aspiring wrestlers
Being able to work in all kinds of situations is what Daniels said has helped him to have a long career in pro wrestling. "It's just a matter of variety," he said. "I tell guys they need to work with as many different people as they can, in as many different places as they can. The only way you can become a commodity is if you, as a wrestler, are comfortable enough to be put in a situation where you can wrestle anybody at any time, the more likely you are to be booked as a professional wrestler. I made it one of my strong suits. I can wrestle a guy bigger than me and have a good match. I can wrestle a guy smaller than me and have a good match. I can wrestle someone who is only a brawler. I can wrestler high-flyers. I can wrestle trained technical wrestlers. I feel that I have a little bit of all of that in me. That makes it easy for promoters to look at me and go, 'I can have a good match if I book Christopher Daniels. I can have him wrestle any of my guys, and I know that he'll have a good match whether it's the first match on the show, the main event or whatever.' "
Daniels' background in theater, including a degree in the field, also has proven to be helpful.
"I didn't have stage fright. That's for sure. It's very easy for me to be in character, to be somebody that I wasn't 9 to 5 from Mondays to Fridays. It was easy to take a microphone and talk. It was easy for me to understand the idea of presentation. When you're in the ring, you're trying to get everybody involved in the arena, trying to get them all involved in your match -- the idea of playing to the crowd, projecting and things like that. That made it very easy for me, having that theater background to do all that."
A locker room asset
Daniels has a long list of accomplishments including some time in the WWF. "I was with WCW twice. All the pay-per-view stuff I did for TNA, and all this stuff," he said referring to traveling to Japan and elsewhere to show off his skills. "I've had a lot of stuff happen to me, good stuff happen to me because of professional wrestling."
Some of that good stuff is happening in ROH, which presents events regularly in Chicago Ridge and has an 10/16 match booked between Davey Richards and Daniels, who has been called one of the Founding Fathers of the Philadelphia-based promotion.
"Ring of Honor probably has the most talented locker room in the business," Daniels said. "They have always been on the cutting edge as far as introducing talent to the wrestling world. For me, to go in in a veteran role and go against guys -- both that have been there for a while and guys that weren't there the first time I was there, it lends itself to some fresh matchups. Whether I haven't wrestled that person in a while or I haven't wrestled them ever, I feel like me being in Ring of Honor has given me a bit of new life in my career. And it's given a little bit of life into Ring of Honor and their schedule. Things like me vs. Davey Richards coming up in Chicago.
"I got a chance to wrestle Eddie Edwards, Kevin Steen, Roderick Strong and all these guys who are very talented guys. I got a chance to wrestle Tyler Black twice before he went on to World Wrestling Entertainment. I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I didn't go back to Ring of Honor. Going there and wrestling the best guys that they have to offer sort of keeps me at the top of my game."
His favorites
When it comes to who Daniels thinks is at the top of his game, there are several. "My personal favorite right now is Chris Jericho," he said. "I've always been a big fan of the in-ring work but also his in-character work. I feel like he's doing the best stuff of his career right now. And I've always been a big fan of his stuff.
"I'm a big fan of Christian. When he was in TNA, I felt like he gave a lot to that company. And he gave a lot to the guys he worked with. The chances I got to work with him, I felt like he was very considerate and very approachable. So I'm a big fan of his work, and I'm happy he's as successful as he is.
"I still like Edge a lot, Randy Orton and John Cena -- guys that I've seen start from there and become stars of WWE. And the guys I watch from TNA. My friends A.J. Styles, Samoa Joe and Frankie Kazarian are guys that have put their time in. We've traveled together. It's great seeing their success, and I'm happy to know I sort of have a part in that."
When it comes to what some call a war between WWE and TNA, Daniels said head-to-head competition will not work. "I don't think it's fair to call it a war. WWE is the juggernaut, and it's best to be an alternative rather than a head-to-head competitor. It's best, especially for the wrestling fans, to have stuff to choose from. For a long time, TNA gave like a really strong alternative to WWE, and that was when I felt like it was doing its best work, the best stuff, the best product. TNA is still going to keep moving on. They're still going to keep producing their productions and gaining new fans as they go. Spike TV is committed to them, so I know they're going to continue to do well. And the WWE is the WWE. It's gonna always be there, and it's always going to be at the top echelon."
Eyes on the future
With hopes to wrestle for many more years, the 17-year vet likely will be a part of pro wrestling in some capacity for a few more decades.
"Whenever I get mad about how my career is going, I can step back and get a fresh perspective and look at what I've had an opportunity to do and the things that I am still doing today. I have to look back at it and say I'm very happy with the things that I have done and the way my career has gone. I didn't always get the breaks that I wanted, but I did get breaks that a lot of guys don't get and opportunities that a lot of guys don't get. I've been very fortunate, and I want to continue doing it as long as I'm healthy and as long as I am enjoying it," Daniels said.
"I'd (also) love to do more acting. When I feel like my in-ring career is over, I'd like to do stuff like commentating. I'd like to help be a producer, try to help guys become better wrestlers -- behind the scenes. But right now the after in-ring stuff seems very far away from me."
In the beginning
Daniels, who grew up in North Carolina, said he came to the Windy City for an entirely different pursuit than pro wrestling.
"I moved to Chicago when I was about 21 or 22 years old. I was a theater major in college, and I went to Chicago to break into the acting scene up there. And I wasn't having a whole lot of success," he said Sunday (9/26) shortly after arriving back in California after hitting the mat in Japan. "I always joked with my wife -- at the time she was my girlfriend, 'If this acting thing doesn't pan out, I can always go be a pro wrestling.' "
Daniels may have been joking at the time, but the end result was no joke.
"She took it to heart," he said of his girlfriend-at-the-time's reaction to his humor," and found a school up there, which was Windy City. And she arranged for me to have an interview with Sam DeCero, who is still the owner. I came out of there with a glazed look in my eyes and knew that this is really what I wanted to do. I started training in January 1993 and had my first match about three months later. And 17 years later, here we are."
That inaugural WCPW contest pitted Daniels teamed with Titan against the Manson Brothers (Ripper and Skull).
"I had my first two matches on the same day," Daniels recalled of the April 1993 in-ring face-offs. "Windy City taped television out of their studio, which was also their school. The next show I had was the third Battle of the Belts." And it was at that big show that Daniels won the WCPW lightweight title after beating Trevor Blanchard.
Giving back
Although some wrestlers may forget their roots, Daniels is all too happy to tout WCPW -- where he trained until 1996 -- whenever he can. Maybe that's because of the respect for the business that he learned from what is billed as the oldest independent pro wrestling promotion in Chicago and possibly the United States.
"I didn't really know it at the time until I moved away from Windy City how difficult it can be," he said. I didn't realize how good of a school Windy City was until I moved and started looking for other places to train when I moved to California. I just appreciated how much respect to have for the business that Sam ingrained in us. So I definitely came out of there not really understanding how much work it was until down the line, I saw a lot of guys who weren't willing to put in that effort and hard work and treated professional wrestling as a get-rich or get-famous (tool), something to get done quickly. All the time, I tell wrestlers who are going through training, 'You are going to get out of it what you put into it.' I definitely learned that work ethic at Windy City."
He credited WCPW's longevity to DeCero and vice president Mike Grachtner. "Those guys had a never-say-die attitude. They've worked hard to make Windy City last and try to make the school a success and the company itself a success, at great personal sacrifice for both of them. They really put their nose to the grindstone to make Windy City special and to keep it going. They are definitely the heart of Windy City."
DeCero may have helped to shape Daniels' future, but "The Fallen Angel" will team with Bailey Mannix against DeCero and Mike Anthony, another mentor of Daniels. That matchup will go down tonight (10/02) at Toyota Park, 7000 S. Harlem Ave., Bridgeview, during WCPW's big annual show. "It was a chance to get in there with the guys that started me on the path I am today. This gives me a chance to come back and give back to the school and do these shows," Daniels said of being booked on the card.
"It's going to be one of the best shows that Windy City puts on this year. It's an opportunity to see the stars of Windy City, the guys that are coming up through the school. This match that we're going to have is going to be a one-time-only thing. It will be an opportunity to see Sam DeCero return to the ring and to wrestle me. It will be a lot of fun. It's going to be a good time for families to come out to Toyota Park and see some good wrestling."
Speaking of Battle of the Belts, Daniels captured several WCPW titles including League, lightweight, middleweight and tag-team belts during his tenure with the company.
"Back when I started, I was a slight of a man. I was merely 180 pounds, and it was funny. Sam had a very regimented system in terms of the guys, in terms of weight classes. He saw that not everybody coming into the school was going to be 6-foot-5. He had a heavyweight title, a middleweight title and a lightweight title. That lightweight title ended up being filled with guys World Championship Wrestling would call cruiserweights, or a precursor to the X Division (in Total Nonstop Acting Wrestling). I spent most of my career (at WCPW) doing lightweight stuff. After I left and came back for them, I did a lot of stuff for the middleweight divison. I never got the heavyweight belt, though."
Creating characters
Daniels, who has been part of the rosters of TNA and Ring of Honor, has made his mark as the Fallen Angel, a moniker that came from the failed suggestion of the Fallen Angels to name a tag team with then-partner Kevin Quinn. "I liked it so much that I kept it as my nickname," Daniels said. "The actual persona of the priest character (came from when) I started watching Goldust, Dustin Rhodes' character in the World Wresting Federation. That character struck me as somebody that no matter who you were, you would get a strong reaction. Because no matter your background, you would have a strong sense of your own sexuality. And that's what that character sort of played on.
"So my thing was: 'What other subject will everybody have a strong feeling toward, no matter who they are?' And I thought religion would be the answer to that. I decided to come up with a character sort of based on David Koresh, based on cult leaders. I felt like this guy, the Fallen Angel, felt like he was god. He was God's gift to wrestling. I molded it after that and tinkered with it over the years, and turned it into what I basically did for the middle part of my TNA career."
But the Fallen Angel isn't the only character that Daniels brought to TNA on cable channel Spike. His lighter side came out in Curry Man. "That was actually a character I was given," he said. "I started working for a company in Japan called Michinoku Pro Wrestling. Every four years, they did a tournament caleld the Masked Man Tournament. I did a previous tour for them as myself, and they liked me so much and asked me to come back and do a character called Curry Man made specially for that tournament. The other guys came in, did the characters for the tournament and those characters disappeared. But Curry Man was popular enough and they liked my wrestling enough where they brought me back tour after tour to do the Curry Man character. I did Michinoku pro tours for about three years until I got signed by WCW back in 2000. And I returned to Japan and did tours for them as Curry Man and New Japan (Pro-Wrestling) from 2002 to 2004."
Daniels said there are positives both to playing a face and generating heel heat. "It's fun knowing that the fans are sort of behind you. I feel that energy when they are booing me or cheering me," he said. "At the same time, knowing you can come out from the curtain and have everybody just want to see you get your butt kicked, that sort of has an appeal as well. I've had the most fun being a heel. I feel like the best work I ever did was as a heel. The best guys I had a chance to wrestle with were the babyfaces, and I felt like I was a good foil for them."
Advice for aspiring wrestlers
Being able to work in all kinds of situations is what Daniels said has helped him to have a long career in pro wrestling. "It's just a matter of variety," he said. "I tell guys they need to work with as many different people as they can, in as many different places as they can. The only way you can become a commodity is if you, as a wrestler, are comfortable enough to be put in a situation where you can wrestle anybody at any time, the more likely you are to be booked as a professional wrestler. I made it one of my strong suits. I can wrestle a guy bigger than me and have a good match. I can wrestle a guy smaller than me and have a good match. I can wrestle someone who is only a brawler. I can wrestler high-flyers. I can wrestle trained technical wrestlers. I feel that I have a little bit of all of that in me. That makes it easy for promoters to look at me and go, 'I can have a good match if I book Christopher Daniels. I can have him wrestle any of my guys, and I know that he'll have a good match whether it's the first match on the show, the main event or whatever.' "
Daniels' background in theater, including a degree in the field, also has proven to be helpful.
"I didn't have stage fright. That's for sure. It's very easy for me to be in character, to be somebody that I wasn't 9 to 5 from Mondays to Fridays. It was easy to take a microphone and talk. It was easy for me to understand the idea of presentation. When you're in the ring, you're trying to get everybody involved in the arena, trying to get them all involved in your match -- the idea of playing to the crowd, projecting and things like that. That made it very easy for me, having that theater background to do all that."
A locker room asset
Daniels has a long list of accomplishments including some time in the WWF. "I was with WCW twice. All the pay-per-view stuff I did for TNA, and all this stuff," he said referring to traveling to Japan and elsewhere to show off his skills. "I've had a lot of stuff happen to me, good stuff happen to me because of professional wrestling."
Some of that good stuff is happening in ROH, which presents events regularly in Chicago Ridge and has an 10/16 match booked between Davey Richards and Daniels, who has been called one of the Founding Fathers of the Philadelphia-based promotion.
"Ring of Honor probably has the most talented locker room in the business," Daniels said. "They have always been on the cutting edge as far as introducing talent to the wrestling world. For me, to go in in a veteran role and go against guys -- both that have been there for a while and guys that weren't there the first time I was there, it lends itself to some fresh matchups. Whether I haven't wrestled that person in a while or I haven't wrestled them ever, I feel like me being in Ring of Honor has given me a bit of new life in my career. And it's given a little bit of life into Ring of Honor and their schedule. Things like me vs. Davey Richards coming up in Chicago.
"I got a chance to wrestle Eddie Edwards, Kevin Steen, Roderick Strong and all these guys who are very talented guys. I got a chance to wrestle Tyler Black twice before he went on to World Wrestling Entertainment. I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I didn't go back to Ring of Honor. Going there and wrestling the best guys that they have to offer sort of keeps me at the top of my game."
His favorites
When it comes to who Daniels thinks is at the top of his game, there are several. "My personal favorite right now is Chris Jericho," he said. "I've always been a big fan of the in-ring work but also his in-character work. I feel like he's doing the best stuff of his career right now. And I've always been a big fan of his stuff.
"I'm a big fan of Christian. When he was in TNA, I felt like he gave a lot to that company. And he gave a lot to the guys he worked with. The chances I got to work with him, I felt like he was very considerate and very approachable. So I'm a big fan of his work, and I'm happy he's as successful as he is.
"I still like Edge a lot, Randy Orton and John Cena -- guys that I've seen start from there and become stars of WWE. And the guys I watch from TNA. My friends A.J. Styles, Samoa Joe and Frankie Kazarian are guys that have put their time in. We've traveled together. It's great seeing their success, and I'm happy to know I sort of have a part in that."
When it comes to what some call a war between WWE and TNA, Daniels said head-to-head competition will not work. "I don't think it's fair to call it a war. WWE is the juggernaut, and it's best to be an alternative rather than a head-to-head competitor. It's best, especially for the wrestling fans, to have stuff to choose from. For a long time, TNA gave like a really strong alternative to WWE, and that was when I felt like it was doing its best work, the best stuff, the best product. TNA is still going to keep moving on. They're still going to keep producing their productions and gaining new fans as they go. Spike TV is committed to them, so I know they're going to continue to do well. And the WWE is the WWE. It's gonna always be there, and it's always going to be at the top echelon."
Eyes on the future
With hopes to wrestle for many more years, the 17-year vet likely will be a part of pro wrestling in some capacity for a few more decades.
"Whenever I get mad about how my career is going, I can step back and get a fresh perspective and look at what I've had an opportunity to do and the things that I am still doing today. I have to look back at it and say I'm very happy with the things that I have done and the way my career has gone. I didn't always get the breaks that I wanted, but I did get breaks that a lot of guys don't get and opportunities that a lot of guys don't get. I've been very fortunate, and I want to continue doing it as long as I'm healthy and as long as I am enjoying it," Daniels said.
"I'd (also) love to do more acting. When I feel like my in-ring career is over, I'd like to do stuff like commentating. I'd like to help be a producer, try to help guys become better wrestlers -- behind the scenes. But right now the after in-ring stuff seems very far away from me."