What does being here for ROH’s 16th anniversary mean to him?
I feel like for me it’s sort of a validation for the work that I’ve put into Ring Of Honor over the course of 16 years. I don’t take full credit for the success of Ring Of Honor; that would be wildly arrogant, but truthfully, when people look back at Ring Of Honor, if they see that Christopher Daniels had a hand in building ROH up to the point of where they are now, then I am very proud of that. I’m proud of all the work that I’ve done in Ring Of Honor, and I’m proud of the fact that we’re considered to be one of the upper echelons of professional wrestling in the world today. And, for me selfishly, being in ROH at this point, it drives me to continue to compete with some of the best wrestlers in the world, show the world that I’m still at the top of my game. Being able to get in there with guys like the Young Bucks, Adam Page and Marty Scurll, Cody, it pushes me to continue to be one of the best in the world and to try and stay relevant, or to try and reinvent myself and continue to be at the top of professional wrestling, which I believe Ring Of Honor is.
With his World Championship win in 2017 being his biggest achievement, what would he consider to be another major hallmark of his career?
I’d have to say the first time Frankie and I were crowned World Tag Team Champions. That holds a special place in my heart, only because I feel like Frankie’s the best tag team partner that I’ve ever had. We’ve been champions four times, and each time is special to me, but the first time he and I won tag team gold, I felt like we knew that we had something good. Over the past seven years that we’ve been tagging together, I feel like we’ve continued to prove that when it comes to tag team wrestling, we’re in the upper echelon as well. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the Young Bucks, the Motor City Machine Guns or the Briscoes, or War Machine or reDRagon; we’ve gone in with those teams and hung with them, toe-to-toe. We’ve won our share of championships, but I don’t think our championship story is over yet.
Who would he put on his “Mount Rushmore” of ROH wrestlers?
I feel like probably the top four guys for me are, and I’m not going to name myself, that’d be wildly arrogant. I’d have to put Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, Jay Briscoe and Jay Lethal. It’s tough to narrow it down to four, because you leave out guys like Nigel McGuinness, who deserves to be in that conversation. You leave out Low Ki, Austin Aries as the first two-time champion, or Adam Cole as the first three-time champion. All of those guys deserve to be in that conversation, but certainly looking back at the history of Ring Of Honor, the first two guys, Samoa Joe and Bryan Danielson are locks. And what Jay Briscoe and Jay Lethal have meant to Ring Of Honor, especially over the past decade, it certainly says a lot about their hard work and their effort and what they brought to this company as a whole.
Daniels comments on the excitement for ROH’s 16th Anniversary this Friday:
Ring Of Honor, for 16 years, we’ve been known as the place where the best wrestling on the planet happens. Friday there’s going to be no exception. You look at the main event with Dalton Castle and Jay Lethal, SoCal Uncensored vs Young Bucks, Briscoes vs Motor City Machine Guns. Any one of those matches could be a main event in the world, and it’s all on this show. It’s going to be top to bottom a great night of pro wrestling, and it’s what Ring Of Honor has given to wrestling for the past 16 years. It’s definitely well worth every penny you spend on it.
