— Christopher Daniels appeared on Ring Rust Radio for a new interview. Some highlights are below:
On winning the ROH Championship: “It’s very surreal. When the three count finally went down and I realized that my journey to that goal had finally been completed, I felt a sense of relief and a sense of accomplishment. It also sort of washed over me in that moment of time. Hearing the crowd’s reaction, seeing the streamers and having my friend Frankie there to help me along. All of that is just something I will always remember and something I will always hold dear in my heart. As far as the reaction for my peers, literally 20 minutes of every hour of the first two days after I won the championship, I spent on Twitter or my phone responding to tweets, DMs and messages from people that I’ve worked with over the course of 24 years that were reaching out to congratulate me on my big evening. For me having worked with so many different people over the course of my career and to have them reach out on my big night, that meant the world to me. I was happy to know that my experience with all those guys was positive enough that they felt compelled to reach out to congratulate me when I became champion. It was very cool and it was a great feeling to know that I have the respect of so many of my peers.”
On his promo leading into his match against Adam Cole: “Actually, a lot of that promo came from the promo that I cut previous to Ladder Wars. There is a period before Ladder Wars happened where I sort of realized that tag team championship I held with Frankie at that point that could’ve conceivably been the last world championship I ever held. As much as Frankie and I are alike in terms of our mindset and our wrestling and as close as we are as friends, the big difference between us is I’ve been wrestling six years longer than him and I’m going to retire before him. I don’t expect him to hang it up at the same time I do. He’s got many, many years ahead of him and I feel like my career is pretty close to being over. I’m not going to put a timeframe on it, but I know that I’m talking probably in terms of months probably when you think about it. I went into that promo thinking what am I going to do to keep the things that I have if I realize this is the last time I get to hold it. So, after Ladder Wars and the opportunity to become world champion came up, it was a whole different mindset. Talking about the tag team championship was something that I had before and I always had a level of success at, but talking about never being world champion and something I never held, and the possibility of never holding it. Those sacrifices I made to try and hold it and the sacrifices I made and then the idea of never holding that championship, it all came into play when that promo came around. It was a lot of reality and a lot of real moments in that promo. Things that I think about not when I’m in front of a camera not when I have a microphone in my hand, but when I’m by myself and thinking that I have a little bit left to do in this career that I’ve been proud of for 24-plus years. So that all came out in that promo and that was as real as it gets.”
On the younger stars who could be top names in the industry: “I’ll talk about Ring of Honor. You talk about the guys that are coming up like Dalton Castle, Jay White and Flip Gordon. A tag team like War Machine who has only been together for a short period of time but have already been Ring of Honor tag team champions and now they’re currently IWGP champions and there is a bright future for those guys as far as a tag team dominance. Guys like Marty Scurll and Will Ospreay who just recently in the past year joined Ring of Honor and continue to show innovation and a creative mindset for pro wrestling that I think Ring of Honor fans are very happy to have on our roster. I think they will continue to grow and become great characters and great contributors to the history of Ring of Honor.”
On striking the balance between helping up-and-comers while looking out for oneself: “For me personally, the idea of staying relevant and staying on top is just a matter of getting in the ring with the guys that are up-and-coming and trying to prove that I’m still able to wrestle at that top level. For Ring of Honor, you have to understand that for a good percentage of the roster, Ring of Honor is the first opportunity for them to be seen by a national fan base. It’s very important that Ring of Honor continues to cultivate that mentality that this is the spot and this is a destination for young up and comers to come to and be seen and to be discovered. When you’ve got that sort of mentality, that’s when you get guys that yearn to come to Ring of Honor to join the roster and put their best foot forward when they walk through the ropes and into the ring. I think that those young wrestlers that want to be a part of Ring of Honor, they also become better by wrestling veterans like myself, Bully Ray, Jay Lethal and Jay Briscoe. When the Hardys were here, the teams that got an opportunity to work with them in that short period of time learned so much from them. Those guys that have gone on and been champions and held titles and main evented all around the world, the young guys get opportunities and they get to learn from being in the ring with veterans like that and that experience is invaluable to them.”
On who would be on the ROH Mt. Rushmore: “Daniel Bryan, Samoa Joe, CM Punk and Nigel McGuinness. I wasn’t going to put myself on there. As much as I’ve contributed to Ring of Honor, those guys did as much or more and certainly deserve the recognition. It’s nice to think that people think I deserve to be top four like that and that sort of sense of what they’ve done for the company, but if I found out I was number five on the list out of four, I wouldn’t be disappointed. You look at the track record of those four guys and what they contributed to the company in the time when they were champion, I don’t think my current run compares to the stuff they’ve done yet. You can try to build a title reign that stands up and when you lay it side-by-side with what Joe, Punk, Bryan or Nigel all did, that’s my goal is to try to be comparable to those guys and it’s a long road ahead of me to do that.”
— Here is episode 50 of Being The Elite, where the “Who Poisoned Nick” mystery continues. Matt and Nick travel to Tijuana for THE CRASH and onto Canada to meet up with Kenny for ROH’s War of the Worlds tour.
