AEW original Christopher Daniels has elaborated further on his decision to retire from in-ring competition and how the last match could have actually taken place months earlier.
On the January 18th episode of AEW Collision, Daniels was defeated by Adam Page in a brutal Texas Death Match, which was taped ahead of time 2 days prior. After the match took place, news broke that the match may be the AEW star’s final time in the ring, bringing to an end a legendary career that began all the way back in 1993. On the next episode of Dynamite and on social media, Christopher Daniels confirmed that he had retired from in-ring competition.
Appearing as a guest on Talk is Jericho, Christopher Daniels spoke about the accumulating injuries and how no surgery was going to be able to completely fix the damage:
“So like I said, I had been having atrophy on the left side of my left arm and shoulder from years before, the injury from WCW Nitro. So while this was going on and I was being an EVP, I looked into getting neck surgery to see if there is something I can do to sort of offset this atrophy and stuff. So I spoke to surgeons, and they had said to me we did an MRI, and I’ve got so much spurring on the back of my neck it looks like the skeleton of Alien. There’s all these spurs coming off from the base of my skull to the middle of my back. It’s just this crazy amount of bone spurs coming off my spine.
So they showed me that at first, the MRI, and I was like oh my, that’s a lot, okay. Then they’re like okay, so we can do this procedure where we basically make the space in your spine where your nerves go to your arms and stuff like that. We can make that bigger so there’s less pressure on the nerves and there’s no impingement, that sort of thing. I was like, that’s great. Then he’s like, but you will never get back what you’ve lost. That atrophy is not gonna go away because this injury, the main injury that started all this is 20 years old. Then I thought, so you mean I can do the surgery and it won’t fix anything? Great, sign me up.
So that was the end of that thought process of okay, well I can’t get surgery to fix this. There’s no situation where this is going to get better. So I’m like, okay.”
Continuing, Daniels stated that he suffered a stinger in the match against the former AEW Champion and was checked out by the medical team after the match. At this point, Daniels was strongly advised to stop wrestling, to which The Fallen Angel realised that at this point in his life he has bigger priorities:
“Then the match happens with Hangman, I was gonna take this move and I ended up sliding a little bit too far down, I actually bumped my head a little bit and got a little tingly in the arm. Then the finish was meant to be The Buckshot Lariat to the back of the neck. But when it hit, I got a little bit of a jolt again and I was like, oh. I’ve had stingers before, so I didn’t think anything of it. So I go check the docs and they’re like, how do you feel? I was like, I feel okay. There’s a little tingly here in this arm. They’re like, oh, that’s disconcerting. That made them think maybe we should check this out.
So I did another little MRI and they’re like, you really, really, should stop doing this. I was like, seriously? And they’re like well yeah, you’re 54 years old, this isn’t gonna get any better and you could take a bump [and be seriously injured]. First of all, the vertebrae in your neck are starting to fuse, so you’re gonna get less and less flexible, and you’ve taken enough bumps where any sort of whiplash, the danger quotient sort of rises and rises. So I sort of had to take a look at that and go what am I really doing this for?
I grew up loving wrestling, but near the end, because of the amount of work that I’m doing, and I recognised that the stuff I was doing backstage was a little more important, specifically to the company than my in ring participation. So having that in mind it’s like, all right, why are you stressing yourself out about trying to get in the ring again when you’ve got a job that you have to do, that the company sort of depends on you to do? I was like, okay,”
Daniels then recalled a story about how Roddy Piper was angry about having to return to wrestling at 49 years old because he was basically broke. Daniels, who was the same age at that point, realised how fortunate he was to be financially stable in AEW, to which he called Tony Khan to express his gratitude:
“I thought to myself oh sh*t. I’m almost 50 years old, and I am very fortunate to have the position that I have with AEW. I remember calling Tony. I was like listen, I just read this thing about Roddy Piper, about how when he was this age, and I’m this age, and I’m somewhat comfortable because of you, I wanted to say thank you. I was in tears. Dude, because of AEW I’m somewhat financially stable. My family’s taken care of, and that sort of was the important thing.”
Concluding the story of his decision to retire, Daniels stated that he was really hired for his wrestling mind and coaching abilities, which made the decision to hang up the boots that much easier:
So flash forward to today and I was thinking, do I want to keep falling down for a living and possibly damage myself permanently when I don’t need to? And that got me, I was like, yeah, maybe I don’t need to do this anymore. It’d be different if I didn’t have the VP of Talent Relations, the amount of people that I help and work with as a coach back here. That sort of is what Tony hired me for.
In the end, that’s what I realised. He didn’t really hire me for my in ring. He hired me for what I could do to help the guys. Whatever he thinks of my wrestling mind, he appreciates it enough where he lets me coach guys like Jay White and Mark Briscoe and The Bucks, Kenny Omega and Hangman Page and all these guys.
All of these guys that I’ve coached in the past, that sort of is the job that he wants for me. So why am I gonna risk my health and my future, the future of me walking around and being able to play with my potential grandchildren or whatever? It took the ego out of his like, Dude, what are you doing? You don’t need to do this anymore. And I was like, You’re right. I really don’t.”
AEW Star Christopher Daniels At Peace With In-Ring Career Coming To An End
When asked if he was at peace with how his career ended, Daniels admitted that he was more content than he thought he would be given that he has greatly reduced his in-ring time in recent months. The AEW star also added that as he wanted his last match to be in the company he volunteered to wrestle Jack Perry, which could have been the original final match:
“I’m a lot more at peace with it than I thought I would be. I think a lot of that has to do with not wrestling as often as I did in 2024. Like I said, this match that I had with Hangman was the first match that I had in four months. Before that, it was another four months before I had a match. The match that I had before this Hangman match was a match with Jack Perry. And honestly, it wasn’t even supposed to be me. It was just one of those things where Tony had Jack Perry versus TBD, and I was like what if that’s me? Because I had this thing with The Elite.
At that moment too, the last match that I had had was on the independents, and in the back of my head I always said, well out of respect to Tony, I should probably have my last match in AEW. I didn’t want to not have a match in AEW and if the end were to come soon, I didn’t want to be like, oh sh*t, I never had that match with AEW.
So I literally volunteered, Hey, man, I could wrestle that match. Then I wrestled that match with Jack, and I even said to him at that moment ‘Hey, man, I’m not sure, this might be my last match.’ He was like what? I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m getting to the end, and there’s not a lot of demand for me. But I mean, we’ll see what happens.’ Just sort of in passing, and it almost happened that way, that almost was my last match until this thing with Hangman went down.”
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