Christopher Daniels On How Sting And Kurt Angle Treated Him In Their TNA Matches
Recently on E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness, former WWE Champions Edge and Christian welcomed ROH's Christopher Daniels to the podcast. Among other things, Daniels talked about working with WWE Hall Of Famers Sting and Kurt Angle and giving advice to the young ROH locker room. Additionally, Daniels talked about the growth potential of ROH.
According to Daniels, the likes of Sting and Angle never pulling rank on him is the biggest vote of confidence he could receive as a pro's pro in the genre of professional wrestling.
"I had the benefit of doing a short little singles program with [Sting]." Daniels explained, "if you had told 12 year old Christopher Daniels that he would be one day wrestling Sting in a pay-per-view match, his head would've exploded. But I think the big thing for me, the thing I took as I guess the most complementary out of it all was whenever we would get together with someone like Sting or even Kurt [Angle], they basically treated us like equals and they basically said, 'I trust you guys – whatever you want.' Do you know what I mean? They never lorded their experience over us. Like, they treated us like we belonged in the ring with them. And that to me, it was a great sign of respect for them to give us that and I feel like that we earned it too. Like, we got in the ring with them and they knew that whatever we did, it was going to be the best for business, and we would get the heat when we needed it, and we'd put them over when we needed to. They knew we were doing business the right way. And so, I mean, I felt very comfortable knowing that whenever we had to wrestle those guys, they were going to [say], 'okay, whatever you guys want – we're good – we trust you.'"
Unlike compact discs, this 'CD' gets more play now than ever and the greenhorns of ROH are all ears when Daniels comes calling with some wisdom.
"In my experience, as far as the Ring Of Honor locker room and I think Frankie [Kazarian] has had this experience too." Daniels professed, "like, when we go and we tell somebody, 'hey, do you mind if we give you a piece of advice?' or 'can I give you an opinion on something?' I feel like it's easily accepted from guys because we never go to them and say, 'well, that was 100% wrong and what I'm about to tell you is 100% right.' I explain, if I see something, I usually tell them why I think it didn't work, and what I think can be improved, and the reason why. And, at the very end of it too, it's just my opinion and my experience. And, I mean, what works for me might not work for guys, but if they have an open enough mind to try it the way that I suggest, they might find why it works or why it doesn't work for them and why they have to do it a different way entirely. But that's the way I think Frankie and I have been in terms of giving advice out. We realize that this is an art form and there are many different ways to get a certain result, but after 20 and 25 years, we've done a lot of those ways and we've gotten a lot of those results. And so, when we give those little pieces of advice, most guys are pretty happy to take it and they are pretty happy to give that view an opportunity."
In Daniels' learned opinion, Ring Of Honor has room for more growth, but it is a matter of the promotion's parent company putting ROH in front of the right audiences.
"I personally think that there's potential for growth. I feel like the company, Sinclair [Broadcasting] itself, has a lot of faith in Ring Of Honor and now it's just a matter of which way do they go. I mean, do they add more time to our shows? Do they give us televised specials? I mean, do we go on a regular network? It's just a matter of, like, figuring out these paths, but I feel like the talent in the ring, there's no question that whatever opportunity is given to the show, it's going to flourish. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that these guys, there's a lot of guys and this is their first real opportunity to be on a national stage. And so, [when] you get that opportunity, you become so grateful that you're always putting 110% in the ring and trying to figure out how to build that singular brand up, each wrestler trying to build that brand to play in front of 10,000 instead of 10." Daniels added, "you just get a group of guys with that same mentality and you can't help but have a positive outlook towards the future. Now it's just a matter of what can the company do to sort of point us in the right direction in terms of our growth."
Check out the podcast here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness