65. CHRISTOPHER DANIELS
Real Name – Daniel Covell
Aliases – Curry Man; Fallen Angel
Hometown – Fayetteville, North Carolina
Debuted – April 1993
Titles Held – NWA World Tag Team; TNA X Division;
ROH World Tag Team
Other Accomplishments – only wrestler to win ECWA Super 8
Tournament twice, in 2000 and 2004; was offered WCW contract in
2001 but Vince McMahon’s buy-out meant the deal fell through;
avid comic book fan
In the mid ’90s a group of guys named Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero & Jericho were making their names world wide and on the US independent circuit. It was until early into the new millennium when a new group of talent stepped up and out to become the standard bearers for independent wrestling.
“The Fallen Ange” Christopher Daniels was one of the leaders of that new class of talent. He has been heralded as one of the founding fathers of Ring of Honor and a staple of Total Non-stop Action since its inception over five years ago.
But before there was a TNA or ROH, Daniels toiled through the independents. He originally made his mark in Windy City Pro Wrestling before expanding to independents throughout the country. He had success in virtually every indy fed he passed through.
His time in Japan has also brought great success, including Championship reigns in Zero-One MAX, New Japan and Michinoku Pro. His Japanese appearances are also accentuated by the appearance of Daniels’ “friend” Curry Man. The masked alter ego of Daniels is said to be his own favorite persona and is a big hit in the Far East.
He has had brief stops in both the WWF (as the doppelganger for Christian’s Conquistador Dos), and in WCW where he wrestled Michael Modest in a tryout match. The punch line was that he and Modest were offered WCW contracts, only for the company to be bought by the WWF weeks later and he was out of a job.
In early 2002 Ring of Honor opened its doors and Daniels was called upon to be one of the new company’s top acts. He main evented the inaugural show and became one of ROH’s biggest heels, as he refused to follow the group’s “Code of Honor.” This led to the formation of “The Prophecy,” ROH’s first stable.
A few months later Daniels joined the fledgling NWA-TNA group when it started up. He soon found himself in the group XXX with Elix Skipper and Low Ki. The trio won the NWA World Tag Team Championships and defended them using the patented “Freebird rule.”
Daniels split his time between the two groups before leaving ROH for a year-and-a-half due to the “Rob Feinstein incident.”
By 2005, Daniels was hitting on all cylinders. He had returned to ROH and was making waves in TNA, thanks to his legendary three-way feud with AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. After their feud had died down he formed a team with Styles that reinvented TNA’s tag team scene.
Currently Daniels is working fairly exclusively for TNA and has recently reformed the XXX stable with Skipper and Low Ki. He has amassed two ROH World Tag Championship reigns, six NWA World Tag Titles and three NWA-TNA X-Division Championships.
He is easily TNA’s most underrated and under-utilized talent. He helped bring Ring of Honor to the forefront, using his talents to make the promotion a legitimate entity and not just another fly-by-night independent promotion. Chris Jericho said in his book that those who know how to do job their well in wrestling often end up doing the job. That statement defines “The Fallen Angel” to a “T.” Christopher Daniels has never won a World Championship and isn’t a mainstream wrestling attraction. He is here because of his superb athletic ability and innovativeness in the wrestling ring. He isn’t the “big man on campus” that draws all the attention, but sometimes it’s worth it to just honor those who do their job, and do it well.
