Christopher Daniels was aware that it was only a matter of time before he transitioned to a backstage role.
It was two decades ago that Christopher Daniels began his career in wrestling. He established himself in independent promotions across the U.S. and overseas, was a part of WCW, WWE, Ring of Honor, TNA and is currently working for All Elite Wrestling.
Chris is the Head of Talent Relations for AEW and his last match was in May of this year when he and Frankie Kazarian challenged for the AEW World Tag Team Titles. While speaking to Denise Salcedo of Instinct Culture, Daniels stated that when he joined AEW, he knew the long game wasn’t going to be him in the ring for the company and wants to pass on his years of knowledge to the next crop of talents.
Well I’ve been very fortunate in the sense that when The Young Bucks offered me the opportunity at AEW, I knew I was at the tail end of my career. You know, when we started, I was already 27 years in so I mean, it — this is a young man’s game and I knew that. I knew that if I had an opportunity to be on screen, in the ring, I would take advantage of that but I also knew that the long game wasn’t going to be me in the ring. I wasn’t going to be a focus character, especially with the type of roster that we have. A roster of new, young, hungry talent. I knew that wasn’t my spot and if I can get in the ring and help that young talent get better and not make the mistakes that I made as a wrestler, then I feel like I’m doing my job. But I also — behind the scenes being able to help wrestlers know how to wrestle for television, that’s a very important skill and a lot of these guys don’t have it. This is their first opportunity to be on a national spotlight on national cable, so I mean, my expertise was to let them know how to work towards the camera, how to work towards the largest crowd you have which is always behind the camera, behind the red light so I mean that’s been one of the experiences that I’ve had to bring to the table and all of the work that we’ve done with these young guys, with these young talents has been positive so far.
Daniels’ former partner Frankie Kazarian is consistently featured on AEW programming as he has been dubbed ‘The Elite Hunter’ and is now ambushing members of The Elite on a weekly basis.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Instinct Culture with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
