Wrestling / Christopher Daniels

aka: Curry Man

Christopher Daniels (real name Daniel Christopher Covell, born March 24, 1970) is an American professional wrestler. A student of Mike Anthony, he made his debut in Windy City Pro Wrestling in 1993 and went on to have brief stints in the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling. He is best known for his time in TNA and Ring of Honor, with him being one of the founding fathers of the latter promotion: the first wrestler to seriously threaten the code of honor. He is also in the East Coast Wrestling Alliance Hall Of Fame.

Among his many achievements, he is an Empire Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Champion, a WCPW League Champion, WCPW Lightweight Champion, WCPW Middleweight Champion, WCPW Tag Team Champion, a UPW Heavyweight champion, a two time Canadian Wrestling Federation^note With Kevin Quinn, Big Cliff and Big Kahuna through the magic of the Freebird Rule, a four time ROH Tag Team Champion, an ROH Television Champion, A Michinoku British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight Champion, an FWA British Heavyweight Champion, an IFWA Heavyweight Champion, a WWC Tag Team Champion, a Zero1-Max United States Openweight Champion, a Ballpark Brawl Natural Heavyweight Champion, an IWGP Junior Heavyweight tag team champion^note with American Dragon as Curryman a 6x NWA World Tag Team Champion, An All Action Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion, a 4x TNA X-Division Champion^note 3x as himself, 1x as Suicide, an inaugural AEW Tag Team Champion and ROH World Champion.

---

"And those are the tropes according to the Fallen Angel":

• Aborted Arc: The Claire Lynch angle in TNA (in which Daniels and Frankie Kazarian accussed AJ Styles of having an affair with the titular drug-addicted woman and having a child with her) ended up being canned early, as people discovered the actress' online acting profiles and started sending her abuse.
• Affectionate Parody: The Prince Justice Brotherhood (Curry Man, Shark Boy and Super Eric) was one of Superheroes. ^note Prince Justice was one of Abyss's old gimmicks.
• Anti-Climax: He signed with WCW and a match between him and Michael Modest was heavily hyped. The match was actually entirely awesome — until it ended with Scott Steiner running in and kayfabe breaking both their ankles with a pipe. Neither one would be seen in WCW again. To make it a little worse, Daniels underperformed a bit and was overshadowed by Modest, who put in one of the best performances of his career.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Possible to say he does not have one, but if he does it's AJ Styles considering how much they've feuded with each other over the years.
  • Of the tag teams he has faced, America's Most Wanted are his most prominent opponents as he had embroiled in bitter feuds with them by teaming with Triple X (most primarily Elix Skipper) and even AJ Styles.
• As Himself:
  • In 1998, during his 'Fallen Angel' days, he and Bret Hart demonstrated wrestling moves on a talk show called Later.
  • He shows up in Saints Row IV as the DJ for Gen X, the rock and alternative radio station.
  • He showed up on NUMB3RS with Tito Ortiz.
• Award Show: The Extraordinary Gentlemen's Organization opened up their own Hall of Fame and inducted Bobby Roode in protest for Kurt Angle being inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame.
• Badass Longcoat: He's been known to wear a sleeveless one of these.
• Badass Longrobe: A Black Cloak with white wing and flame designs and a matching detached hood he wore up to early 2007.
• Batman Gambit: The Addiction came up with one to defeat reDRagon at the 2015 Best In The World. While Kyle O'Reilly acted in the exact manner they needed him to, Bobby Fish proved more resourceful than they anticipated, causing them to have fall back on plan B: Chris Sabin giving them a numerical advantage.
• Blank Book: Joined the House Of Truth after stealing Truth Martini's book to learn the game plan of Eddie Edwards and learned that it was blank.
• Blasphemous Boast: The Almighty nickname in ROH in 2015. The Fallen Angel nickname too as a matter of fact.
• Butt-Monkey: Early in his career, whenever he was in triple threat matches with guys that could kick hard, he would usually end up in a spot as the one those guys would use as a kicking dummy to try to show who’s kicks were better. Examples include his match with Low Ki and Bryan Danielson at the first Ring of Honor show and his match with Samoa Joe and AJ Styles at TNA’s Unbreakable event.
• Canon Name: His first name became this when his ring name was inexplicably reduced to just "Daniels" for his 2009-2010 run.
• Captain Ersatz: Fire Pro Wrestling has close approximations of his, or rather Curryman's, likeness.
• Catchphrase:
  • "That's the Gospel according to the Fallen Angel."
  • "You have permission to worship uuuuuuuuuuussssssss *pause* noooooooooooooow!"
  • "This is the worst town I've ever been in!"
• Charlie Brown from Outta Town:
  • During his time in TNA, Daniels was forced out of the company (kayfabe). Shortly after, a masked wrestler named "Curry Man" debuted in the promotion. Smarks knew that it was Daniels under the mask. Subverted in that nobody in the storyline ever voiced suspicion that they were the same person. Played straight after Curry Man was forced to leave the company, around the same time another masked wrestler named Suicide made his debut. After a while, it was suspected by many that Daniels was Suicide (he was, but he wasn't the original), which was even made into a minor storyline after Daniels' official return to TV. But this was eventually "disproved" when Daniels and Suicide were seen together (after Frankie Kazarian, the original Suicide prior to an injury, retook the role).
  • Back in 2000, when Edge and Christian had revived the "Conquistadores" gimmick in an attempt at getting a shot at the WWE World Tag Team Titles, Daniels and Aaron Aguilera, as "Rick" and "Sparky," were the alternate Conquistadores when E&C needed to "prove" they weren't under the masks.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Curry Man, who did prevent Shark Boy from "stomping a fishing hole" in Angelina Love but also was constantly trying to get her to agree to a date with him, when accusing Shark Boy of such was part of the reason why he was going to attack her in the first place.
• Combination Attack: In Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Frankie Kazarian became the first victim of The Young Bucks Meltzer Driver. Two years later in ROH, The Addiction showed they hadn't forgotten when they gave The Bucks what they called "The Best Meltzer Ever".
• Conspiracy Theorist: He and Kazarian were suspected that there was a conspiracy in ROH against the Knights Of The Rising Dawn. They were correct. What they didn't realize was that fellow member partner Chris Sabin was in on it.
• Cool Teacher: He's been trained by Kevin Quinn and Dory Funk Jr.. He's given training to B-Boy and Cheerleader Melissa.
• The Corrupter: To Frankie Kazarian, it's the only way to explain why the latter turned heel with and joined with him to cause general mischief.
• Crossover: Back when TNA and Pro Wrestling Guerilla had a working relationship, he would defend the X Division Title in PWG.
• Crowd Chant: The TNA fans figured out pretty quickly who "Suicide" was and chanted "Daniels" during "Suicide's" matches. As Chris Sabin put it "That ass is unmistakable". However, perhaps not too unmistakeable because they kept the chant up after Frankie Kazarian had taken back the suit and did a pretty good job of imitating him.
• Defeat Means Friendship: This was the impetus for AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels to form a tag team and go after the NWA World Tag Team Championship.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Whenever he and Kazarian are Tag Team Champions, they refer to themselves as "The World Tag Team Champions of the World". He tried to justify it by claiming they were two worlds worth of greatness.
• Determinator: Daniels endured a ruptured ear drum to defend his #2 spot in the Pick Six standings against Kenny Omega at Death Before Dishonor VIII.
• Diabolus ex Machina: Bad Influence owes its existence to this trope. He and Kazarian had issues with each other and were pretty much thrown back together after the end of Fortune just to make AJ Styles's life more difficult…hey, tropes are not bad.
• Dynamic Entry: On the March 31st, 2011 episode of TNA, Daniels returns by rushing from the crowd, scaling the cage, and taking out all of Immortal in one move!
• Designated Girl Fight:
  • Exploited after Alexis Laree attacked Prophecy stablemate Simply Luscious in a vain attempt to stop her from ruining AJ Styles's shot at winning the ROH Heavyweight Championship from another Prophecy stablemate, Xavier. Christopher Daniels accused Laree of having no honor and dared her to face Simply Luscious head on in the ring. Laree accepted and Daniels jumped Laree from behind, laying her out with the Last Rites.
  • Later in TNA, Jim Cornette enforced this trope in TNA so Daniels and AJ Styles went and hired Sirelda to stop Gail Kim from screwing them out of the tag team titles.
• Easy Come, Easy Go: At Future Of Wrestling, he beat Danny Doring for the NWA Florida Championship only to lose it back to Doring a night later.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The point of The Prophecy may have been to tear down the ROH code, but even they could not pretend they did not respect The Great Muta.
• Evil Is Petty: His crusade against the Code of Honor while he was with the prophecy. He seemed to take some perverse pleasure from the fact that there would be no more handshaking in title matches after the stable won all the title belts.
• Evil Virtues: Daniels has always had a sense of honor. His conflicts with ROH stem from the fact Daniels does not believe Honor Is Fair Play. He'll still complain about things that he feels are unfair to himself or his partners, though.
• Eye Scream: A head injury during SCU's match with the Young Bucks left him with some burst blood vessels that gave him an almost completely black left eye permanently. He hasn't attempted to have it fixed because it doesn't affect his vision at all, and it suits his character enough anyway.
• Failure Is the Only Option: When he was put in a "feast or fired" match with Senshi, stipulation being the winner would get a brief case (presumably a contract for a title shot ala money in the bank) but instead it contained a pink slip, meaning Daniels was fired from TNA anyway. Curry Man later suffered the same fate but at least had a 1/4th chance of staying hired.
• Favors for the Sexy: In Round 2 of the Beauty Contest between Taylor Wilde and Angelina Love, the latter brings Curry Man and Shark Boy, who are two of the three judges, up-close to show her bikini to them, even bending over in front of them to further entice them into voting her to win. Even then, Curry Man was completely in favor of Angelina throughout the contest, voting for her in all three rounds in contrast to Super Eric, who voted for Wilde, with Shark Boy serving as the neutral party.
• Finishing Move:
  • (as himself): Angel's Wings, Last Rites, BME (Best Moonsault Ever), Koji Clutch.
  • (as Curry Man): The Spicy Drop.
  • (as Suicide): Suicide Solution.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Formed a tag team in ROH with Matt Sydal after the two traded back to back wins and losses.
• Flipping the Bird: Wore a black "GFY glove" on his right hand during the peak of his Ring General gimmick in TNA which covered all his fingers except the middle finger (and the thumb, if that counts), deliberately giving off this appearance.
• Force Feeding: Curry Man feeds his opponent curry at the start of his Heroic Second Wind
• Foreign Wrestling Heel: He and Kazarian painting their faces blue, wearing kilts, and imitating William Wallace to get Cheap Heat from English fans.
• Funny Foreigner: Curry Man is billed from India. And speaks Japanese.
• The Gadfly: Attempted at the 2016 Death Before Dishonor during the three way world tag team title defense when he tagged out Hiroshi Tanahashi right when he was about to lockup with Tetsuya Naito. Daniels was quickly outdone by Naito, who refused to lockup with him.
• Gimmick Matches: He brought the round robin challenge to Ring of Honor.
• A God Am I:
  • Has claimed that the original idea for the "Fallen Angel" gimmick was "someone with a God complex, someone who thought he was God." Cited Goldust as an inspiration, claiming that he saw the reactions Goldust was generating based on sexuality so he wanted to see if he could get the same kind of reactions based on religion.
  • Still carried over in his post-Fallen Angel self, what with giving fans permission to worship him now. Lately in ROH he's picked up the handle of "The Almighty".
• Gratuitous French: Habitually says Kazarian's first name as "Francois".
• Gratuitous Latin: Said something in what sounded like Latin in MLW (Major League Wrestling) in 2003, while trying to recruit Jerry Lynn to join forces with him, Mikey Whipwreck and the Sinister Minister (James Mitchell, aka James Vandenberg).^note Lynn DID join them, but it wasn't the Latin that did it.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • The underlying truth behind every installment of his feud with AJ.
  • He was visibly upset by the fact that prophecy stablemate Simply Luscious was dating Mr. Wrestling Steve Corino. Both because he wasn't member and because Daniels seemed to wanted to be dating her himself.
• Guyliner: During his "worship me" phase.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • The relationship between AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels was chock full of Ho Yay, even when they were enemies. When they were arguing over the possibility that Daniels could beat Styles, it seemed like a lover's spat that lasted for weeks. Samoa Joe acting like a jealous third party didn't help any. Keep in mind that in real life, Daniels and Styles have named their kids after each other, so this is hardly a relationship that ends when the match does.
  • Bad Influence also gives off this vibe, especially if you watch the videos they were putting out for the #Impact365 programs.
• Homage: When TNA was on the road and stopped in Chicago, Bad Influence paid tribute to "The Second Greatest Tag Team In Wrestling History", The Road Warriors.
• He's Back!: After the TNA issues were apparently resolved, Daniels was scheduled to make a return to Ring Of Honor but ended up returning earlier than announced when CM Punk stated he was going to take the World Title to WWE. Unfortunately for ROH, those TNA issue apparently weren't resolved but the company found an unlikely savior in James Gibson.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!:
  • While not the least decorated of the three founding ROH fathers, Daniels is the only one who never held the belt that would eventually become their world title. This is because TNA removed him from the promotion twice, first during the Prophecy/Second City Saints feud and then during the angle where CM Punk was trying to leave with that world title and Daniels was trying to stop him. With Daniels is back in the promotion again, this time with Frankie Kazarian as the Addiction (formerly Bad Influence), he gained the chance to finally win it and subvert this trope, this best of opportunities being "The Decade Of Excellence" Tournament.
  • Much like his best bud AJ Styles, Chris has been a victim of the rampant backstage politics and constant catering to former-WWE stars that goes on in TNA. Despite constantly proving himself to be one of TNA's top stars and most loyal workers, Chris has never been TNA World Heavyweight Champion, which is even worse than AJ's situation, as by now he's been shown deserving to have at least one run with the title. This was especially egregious when he was feuding with Jeff Hardy for the title right before the annual UK tour (which Hardy is unable to go on due to being a convicted felon on drug trafficking charges), and instead of having Hardy drop it to him so the tour could have a defending champion, they instead had Hardy beat him clean and hog the belt for a month. When AJ finally left, Chris decided to leave again not long after, presumably for good.
• I'll Kill You!: Threatened to murder AJ Styles with a screwdriver during their "I quit" match at TNA's Bound for Glory 2011.
• Improvised Weapon: A tool box and a screw driver to try and gain an edge over Rob Van Dam following his heel turn after his second TNA run.
• In Their Own Image: His ultimate plan for Ring Of Honor was its destruction, with the Prophecy as the tool to make it happen and the blue print of what the new company he would build out of its ruins would look like.
• Ink-Suit Actor: In mostly in Awe Yeah Comics with Frankie Kazarian. In ROH he took to drawing his own comics so the kids in attendance who have more merchandise to enjoy, but Daniels was also the villain in a Doctor Who book.
• It Will Never Catch On: WCW released him after he botched a spring board moonsault during his first Nitro match.
• It's the Best Whatever, Ever!: BME- Best Moonsault Ever. (he runs up the turnbuckles then jumps)
• Jobber: Served as one for the WWF after getting additional training from Dory Funk Jr, spending most of time their on WWF Shotgun Saturday Night, Jakked and Sunday Night Heat. He got to join in the lineage of Legacy Character jobbers The Conquistadors.
• Large Ham: Most of the time, but especially as a heel, when he enjoys diving into "Cartoon Supervillain" territory.
• Last-Name Basis: Done during his last 2010 TNA run. Even HE didn't understand why.
• Legion of Doom: Bad Influence joined forces with Dixie Land, the Bromans, Bobby Roode and Brian Stiffler to finally rid TNA of AJ Styles in 2014. That's roughly eleven on one, or 11 on 2 when Sting tried to help AJ. Then they did it again to get rid of Sting when Samoa Joe tried to help.
• Leitmotif: "Your Sexy Beast" with Frankie Kazarian in The Addiction.
• Look What I Can Do Now!: Upon his third return to ROH from TNA, Daniels openly admitted he couldn't do everything he used to but added that he had gotten in the best shape of his life and could do more than enough to defeat Davey Richards for the Television Title. He didn't, but he did defeat Eddie Edwards for the belt later.
• Made of Iron: He's taken some bumps that quite frankly should have killed him, especially in TNA where he's fallen on his head from above the Ultimate X. Yes, Daniels does have a bad neck from it but he maintained a high work rate despite it.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • In TNA, this is how Bad Influence essentially earned their name. Daniels and Kazarian took advantage of TNA President Dixie Carter's faux-Mrs. Robinson tendencies in order to frame her and AJ Styles into an affair situation. This forced a mutual friend of who they knew AJ and Dixie were helping to kick a drug addiction to come out of the woodwork and reveal herself. Then they convinced her somehow to turn the rumor around and accuse AJ of getting her pregnant after a drunken romp, creating a dent in his wholesome Christian reputation and possibly disrupting his marriage. This whole series of concentrated rumors meant to throw AJ off his game by attacking his reputation ended up accomplishing two things: they retained their relevance in TNA, became two-time World Tag Team Champions of the World, and Daniels won the final one-on-one match between him and AJ in TNA.
  • In ROH, after having closed out their feud with the Decade (a poor man's imitation of Fortune), the Addiction started to go after the ROH Tag Team Championship titles being held at the time by reDRagon. Around the same time frame, an invading force in red masks called the Knights of the Rising Dawn started attacking longtime ROH mainstays in run-ins and speaking out against the idea that company longevity and politics should supercede talent. All eyes pointed to Maria Kanellis and Adam Cole's stable, the Kingdom, as being responsible for this, meanwhile Kazarian and Daniels were able to appeal to Daniels' old friend, ROH Commissioner Nigel McGuinness, to score themselves one last tag title shot after wearing out the opportunities they'd actually earned in competition. Then the title shot came, and one of the red-masked KRD invaders interfered by attacking reDRagon, who fended him off, though this allowed the Addiction to take advantage and beat them for the titles. Then the masked man was unmasked as Chris Sabin. Then Kaz and Daniels hit reDRagon with the belts. The entire KRD plot was an intentional misdirection with a hint of truth Hidden in Plain Sight by the Addiction and Sabin for the sole purpose of becoming World Tag Team Champions of the World once again.
  • Shortly after winning the Decade of Excellence tournament in 2017 to earn a shot at Adam Cole's ROH World Championship at the ROH 15th Anniversary show, Daniels found himself betrayed by his best friend Kazarian joining Cole's stable, the Bullet Club, then verbally spitting on his name while blocking him from responding on Twitter. At the 15th Anniversary show, the Bullet Club's presence was conspicuously absent from the match…until Kazarian came running down the ramp and shoved Daniels into the ring, holding him open for Cole to hit him with the title. Daniels broke free and ducked out of the way before Cole got into his swing, and then Kazarian decided he wanted to hit Daniels with the belt himself…only to throw the belt to the ground and rip up his Bullet Club shirt to reveal a winged Destiny shirt right in front of Cole, stunning him and leaving him prone for a standing ura-nage and a triad of Best Moonsaults Ever leading to the three-count and the ultimate victory for @facdaniels.
• Masked Luchador: Curry Man, who competed in the Japanese masked men league, and Conquistador Dos.
• Meaningful Name: Both "Bad Influence" and "The Addiction" take on much stronger implications when one remembers the Clare Lynch angle that predated both names.
• Mythology Gag: During the Buy-In for AEW Revolution, SCU lost a tag match to the Dark Order, who'd been teasing the arrival of their mysterious leader the "Exalted One". During the beatdown after the match, a robed and hooded figure, theorised to be the Exalted One himself, came out and revealed himself to be Daniels, only for him to attack the Dark Order to rescue the faces. This was a reference to Daniels being the original pick for the "Higher Power" behind the Ministry of Darkness back in the Attitude Era (before Vince McMahon nixed it because he thought Daniels was too small and cast himself in the role).
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Samoa Joe was set to put an end to the "Summer Of Punk" during a four corners survival match but Christopher Daniels ended up getting him eliminated while trying to get revenge on Punk for cheating to get Daniels eliminated earlier.
• The Nicknamer: With Kazarian, epically.
• Older Than He Looks: Daniels turned forty in 2011, but can still keep up with high fliers like AJ Styles and Evan Bourne.
  • For context, he is one year younger than Dustin Runnels and Triple H, and 3 years younger than Glenn Jacobs. He's 50 now in 2020.
• Once a Season:
  • See Charlie Brown from Outta Town above. TNA got into a weird habit of "firing" him almost once a year during a "Feast or Fired" match, and then him coming back in another persona. First Christopher Daniels, then Curry Man, then Suicide (albeit accidentally), then simply as "Daniels" (and not even he understands why). It was there that they ran out of ideas and gave up.
  • The return of Curry Man in late 2013 (with both the Curry Man and Daniels personas active in TNA) saw a nice Call-Back to this when Curry Man immediately dipped from the Feast or Fired match without even trying to grab a briefcase.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: See Destination X 2011, and the AJ Styles match, rivalry. Samoa Joe is not impressed.
• One-Steve Limit: In ROH and TNA, he and Trinity both had moves called "Fall From Grace" but hers was a moonsault while his was a cross armed Iconoclasm.
• Our Angels Are Different: No wings, though he flies just fine without them.
• Parts Unknown: Sin City, The City of Angels
• Perky Female Minion: Angelica, then Simply Luscious, then Allison Danger
• Pet the Dog: The Addiction, surprisingly, decided to run Cody out of the arena when he had shown his true colors to Jay Lethal at Final Battle. Cross-promotional Continuity Nod mixed with Foreshadowing — the core members of Fortune considered Jay Lethal a friend when he wasn't opposing them, and this would be a harbinger of the Addiction's issues with Bullet Club.
• Power Stable:
  • (in ROH): The Prophecy and the House of Truth
  • (in Michinoku Pro Wrestling): Super Curry Max with CIMA, SUWA, Sumo Dandy Fuji and Súper Boy
  • (in TNA): Sports Entertainment Xtreme (led by Vince Russo)
  • The TNA Front Line, Fortune
  • (in AAA): La Legion Extranjera (led by Konnan)
• Power Trio:
  • The Baptized with Monsta Mack and Balls Mahoney in USA Pro Wrestling
  • In TNA, Bobby Roode joined with Bad Influence to form the Extraordinary Gentlemen's Organization. Also, Triple X with Elix Skipper and Low Ki. Curry Man had the Prince Justice Brotherhood with Super Eric and Shark Boy.
  • Kaz and Daniels were also this with Chris Sabin, both sporadically towards the end of all three men's run in TNA and officially in ROH as the Knights of the Rising Dawn.
  • Daniels/Kazarian/Scorpio Sky are also known as SoCal Uncensored or SCU.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Nigel McGuinness wants to put an end to the three way Addiction-Young Bucks-Motor City Machine Guns feud? That's good. In a ladder war? NO!
• Red Baron:
  • The Fallen Angel.
  • Later, The New Face of Impact Wrestling, and even later has been trying his hat at handles such as The Sultan of Seduction and Simply Irresistible before finally arriving at Ring General. All self-titled, btw.
  • He's even come up with a Red Baron for Kazarian, calling him "The Physical Fascination". It hasn't caught on as well. Ditto for Bobby Roode as "The Prime Minister of Suave and Debonair".
  • Their tag team Red Baron: "The World Tag Team Champions of the World", or #WTTCOTW. Later "(The) Bad Influence (of TNA)" when deposed of both the titles and their rematch.
  • He's recently started using "The Sexually Delicious" Christopher Daniels as a handle... also self-titled.
  • Bad Influence + Bobby Roode = The Extraordinary Gentlemen's Organization. Because "Fortune" just doesn't suffice anymore.
  • He was known as "King Of The Indies" after WCW folded up until he became a mainstay of TNA, which is not considered independent. The title would then default to the second KOI winner, American Dragon and then go to HARASHIMA, who is perhaps best known for his time in Dramatic Dream Team.
  • Finally "The Almighty" in ROH.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Inverted As the red and yellow dressed Curryman was the nicer calmer one than the white and blue dressed Shark Boy.
• Revenge by Proxy: He felt ROH had mistreated his associates Kazarian and Kamaitachi, saying he was going to protest until their loses at the 2016 Aftershock were overturned. "Protest" in this case meant lead them in a three on one beat down of Moose.
• Ring Oldies: Daniels turns 50 in 2020, a career spanning more than half his life, and is still working.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: His reason for returning to TNA in 2011 is to take revenge for AJ Styles being taken out by Bully Ray.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • Fell under this at Bound for Glory 2011, complete with Evil Laugh and Ineffectual Death Threat.
  • Then he's claiming that he just "beat" AJ Styles and Rob Van Dam after pretty much every time he interacts with them.
  • Then he drummed up a multi-faceted scam to ruin AJ's reputation and personal life in 2012 just because he couldn't beat him. Though this did work, as he managed to get a few wins on AJ and has had the year of his life.
• Signature Move:
  • Reverse STO, Death Valley Driver, Fall From Grace
  • Curry Bottom (side slam), Curry Cradle (Gannosuke clutch), Domo Lariato (Lariat), Hi-C (crossbody) Tokyo Dangerous (Belly to back suplex backbreaker)
• Shaking the Rump: Christopher Daniels and Kazarian resolved to put some T&A back into TNA pay per views at Genesis 2013, complete with the fallen angel shaking his rump.
• Shout-Out
  • His "Physical Fascination" title for Frankie Kazarian is a reference to one of Daniels's students, Brandon Bishop.
  • The Addiction tend to dress as The Avengers and SHIELD or Venom, depending on the situation. Kazarian says this is at Daniels's urging.
• Slimeball: Became a notable part of his gimmick in TNA during his Bad Influence run, with Taz constantly describing him as "shady" and "shifty".
• Smug Snake: Each heel run he has takes him into this more than the last. His 2011-present run in particular takes the cake on smugness, so much he's formed a team for the purpose of reaffirming his own high opinion of himself.
• Sore Loser: He forced American Dragon to shake his hand during Ring Of Honor's first round robin challenge but when he lost to Low Ki, Christopher Daniels refused to shake his hand and refused to wrestle Low Ki again unless it was for the ROH singles title.
• Spot Monkey: Averted; Daniels employs a wrestling style with many impressive spots, but manages to actually chain them together with decent wrestling, and thus avoid being tarred with the Spot Monkey brush.
• Squash Match: His 2009 Victory Road match against Matt Morgan was a painful two minute squash in Morgan's favor. When Daniels was unable to complete a comeback due to being too hurt, some audience members started laughing at him.
• Student–Master Team: His WWC, Windy City, NWA Midwest and Canadian Wrestling Federation tag team titles runs with his trainers Kevin Quinn and Mike Anthony qualify.
• Tag Team:
  • (in the Midwest indies): The International Males, with Kevin Quinn.
  • (in ROH): with prophecy stablemate Donovan Morgan and with Matt Sydal
  • (in TNA): Triple X, with Low Ki and Prime Time Elix Skipper
  • With Hayashi Rice Man as Curry Man
  • The Prince Justice Brotherhood, as Curry Man with Shark Boy and Super Eric (Young).
  • With AJ Styles in many places.
  • With Kazarian since 2011; in addition to the stable names of Fortune, EGO, and KRD, they've used the tag team names of Bad Influence and The Addiction, before they and Scorpio Sky settled on SoCal Uncensored as a standard team name in all combinations.
• Take Up My Sword: Took over AJ Styles' place as leader of Fortune for a month after AJ got taken out by Bully Ray.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Inverted, as TNA progressively bills his height as taller and taller the less sarcastic he gets. Deadpan Daniels is 5'10, goofy Curry Man is 6'0 and silent Suicide is 6'2.
• Teeth Clenched Team Work: Triple X with America's Most Wanted against The Naturals and Team Canada after a ref somehow declared Prime Time Elix Skipper and Chris Harris of the two rival teams the winners of the NWA World Tag Team Titles. Attempting to make it work resulted in them losing the titles to Christopher Daniels and James Storm, their own regular partners, completely by mistake.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Daniels delivered one of these to Ring Of Honor fans as a heel, right before departing the company for TNA. The whole thing got more heat on TNA as a company than Daniels himself from the ROH bots.
• The Rival:
  • Masked loudmouth Mentalo in Canada.
  • While he did not win the match overall, Christopher Daniels was the first person in all of ROH to get any kind of pin fall on Low Ki, proving he was beatable. As noted, Low Ki was a frequent partner of Daniels in TNA.
• Start My Own: In protest to Kurt Angle being inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame during his feud with Bobby Roode, Bad Influence decided to start their own EGO Hall of Fame just to induct Roode.
• Tonight in This Very Ring: Has lapsed into this during some of his TNA promos.
• Tournament Arc:
  • He beat Scoot Andrews in the finals of the 2000 ECWA Super 8 and Austin Aries in the 2004 finals
  • He won APW's King of the Indies tournament in 2000, which is where he got the nickname up until joining TNA.
  • Beat The Amazing Red at the end of the Pro Wrestling World 1 Legacy Cup in 2002. He and Donovan Morgan would win a tournament to become the first holders of Ring Of Honor's Tag Team Title Belts later that year.
  • Curyman won the 'Futaritabi Tag Team League' of 2002 in Michinoku Pro with Super Rice Boy
  • After coming up short in the first, he beat Amazing Red to win Premier Wrestling Federation's second Shinya Hashimoto Legacy Cup in 2002.
  • While he failed to win the first, he did succeed in ROH's second Round Robin Challenge, beating both Amazing Red and Paul London.
  • He and Low Ki won TNA's 2003 NWA World Tag Team Title Tournament.
  • He and Elix Skipper qualified for Ultimate X based on their performance in the 2004 X Cup.
  • He won the CT Cup of New Age Wrestling in 2009.
  • With Xavier as his partner he Impact Championship Wrestling 2010 'Impact Cup'.
  • In 2017 he won the ROH 'Decade Of Excellence', which only those who had given ten years of their career to the company qualified for, beating Jay Briscoe in the finals to get a shot at the world title...
• Token Good Teammate: Curry Man when he teamed up with traditional Chikara Rudos Los Ice Creams. More like Token Good Competitor, since their opponents were Los Perros Del Mal.
• Two First Names: One of his ring names anyway.
• Ur-Example: One-half of the first NWA Midwest Tag Team Champions, alongside Kevin Quinn and one-half of the first ROH Tag Team Champions, alongside The Prophecy member Donovan Morgan.
• Versus Title: WC Christopher Daniels Vs. Lance Storm
• Villain with Good Publicity: He didn't get the worship he desires but did throw the first pitch at The Hangar at Lancaster, CA prior to the Lancaster JetHawks hosting the San Jose Giants.
• You Are the New Trend: One could make the case that Daniels and Kazarian's actions are what created the Darker and Edgier AJ Styles that would leave TNA for New Japan Pro-Wrestling and become the new ace of the Bullet Club, not only keeping them solidly afloat but allowing them to thrive like never before following the loss of their leader Prince Devitt. Doubles as Unwitting Instigator of Doom for New Japan and Nice Job Fixing It, Villain for everyone else.

---