Christopher Daniels Reveals Real Reason Behind His In-Ring Retirement

Christopher Daniels wrestled his final match on the January 18th episode of AEW Collision, losing to Adam Page in a Texas Death Match. Daniels then confirmed he retired from in-ring competition on the January 22 episode Dynamite and now Daniels has explained why he was forced to retire in the first place.

While speaking on Talk is Jericho, Christopher Daniels talked about his injuries, revealing that he had lost muscle in his left arm and shoulder due to an old WCW injury. He considered neck surgery, but doctors told him that while they could relieve some nerve pressure, the damage was permanent, and he wouldn’t regain his lost strength. Realizing surgery wouldn’t help, he accepted that his condition wouldn’t improve.

“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.

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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.”

During his match with Hangman Page, Daniels landed awkwardly and felt tingling in his arm. After taking a Buckshot Lariat to the back of the neck, the tingling worsened. Doctors checked him and suggested an MRI, which revealed that his vertebrae were fusing, making him less flexible and more prone to serious injury. They strongly advised him to stop wrestling.

Daniels then reflected on his future and while he loved wrestling, he recognized that his backstage role in AEW was now more important. With that in mind, he decided to retire from in-ring competition and focus on his work behind the scenes.

“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 recognized 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.”

While Christopher Daniels retired from in-ring competition for now, Dave Meltzer previously noted that AEW was shooting an angle where Daniels may wrestle again in the future. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether Daniels will end up coming out of retirement in the future but for now, he is definitely retired from in-ring competition.

Do you think Daniels made the right choice in stepping away from the ring? Should AEW give him one last farewell match, or should his final bout against Hangman Page remain his last? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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