Christopher Daniels has no intentions of retiring from in-ring action anytime soon.
Ring of Honor and All Elite Wrestling star Christopher Daniels recently sat down with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked if he has a scouting mentality for AEW when he’s traveling on the independent scene, Daniels said that isn’t really the case. Daniels said any talent the company is currently interested in are already on the company’s radar.
“Not really, not really. Honestly, I feel like the people that were interested in are people that are making their name,” Christopher Daniels admitted. “I don’t feel like I’m gonna be surprised by someone on the independents myself. The people that Tony likes and the people that Tony gets excited about signing, I feel like those people are already making their name; they’re getting their spotlight on their own. He likes to sort of fan the flame of someone who’s starting to break out on the independent scene.
“So I very rarely feel like, oh, I’ve never heard of this guy I’m wrestling tonight. Perhaps he’s the next Kenny Omega. I don’t feel like that’s the thing. I feel like it’s possible that if I wrestle someone whose name I’ve already heard, the positive things that I hear about them can be reinforced in a match that I have with them. But I don’t ever think… it’s very rare that you find a diamond in the rough. If it wasn’t, that wouldn’t be the cliche, would it?”
When asked about recently returning to action for Ring of Honor and if he had a preference for doing singles or tag team matches at this stage of his career, Christopher Daniels said he wants to continue to perform as much as he can, and it was a 100% selfish decision on his part.
“It’s 100% selfish, it’s 100% selfish,” Christopher Daniels said. “I want to try and continue to perform as much as I can, and understanding that we’ve got such a full roster and television time being limited, my opportunities won’t always happen on AEW television, and I recognize that. I understand it, and I’m not sad about that.
“I mean, I wish I could be on television more often, but I understand why I’m not. So I want to continue to perform as much as I can. So I was doing a lot of stuff with DEFY, doing stuff with Warrior. I just last night had a match in North Dakota,” Christopher Daniels added. “I wrestled a man by the name of Kevin Ku, who’s a very good young talent. These are things that I want to continue to do so I could still sort of scratch that performance itch. I’m not 100% ready to hang it up, and there will come a time when I am. I know, and like you said, I’m at the tail end of it, so it’s close. I know it’s coming soon. It’s a knock on the door that I can expect any time.
“But until that happens, I’m gonna try and stay at the top level that I can at my age, and if I can work with the young guys at AEW, great. If I can work with young guys on the independents and if I can find out stuff about them that reinforces whatever good reputation they already have, great,” Daniels noted.
“But like I said, it’s 100% selfish,” Daniels added. “I want to perform because that’s what got me into this. I didn’t want to get into professional wrestling with the idea like, ‘Oh, you know what, I can’t wait to be behind the scenes.’ I still like to be in front of the camera, and I’m gonna keep doing that as long as I can until the wheels fall off.”
Christopher Daniels is scheduled to face off with new ROH Pure Champion Katsuyori Shibata on the April 6 episode of Ring Of Honor television.
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