What's an average day like for Christopher Daniels?
"There's work days and days off. When I'm in California at home, I take my kids to school. I'll get home Sunday or Monday and get a chance to be with my kids. For the start of the work week Thursdays in Orlando, I fly out and get to the building in the early afternoon. The rest of the day depends on where we are at. I know part of my job is hitting the gym. Now that we are live every week, I've gotten into a groove. Travel doesn't bother me. That's all part of the game for me. I know what I have to do during the day. I'm traveling with usually the same guys every loop -- Frankie (Kazarian) -- my partner. We have some of the same game plan, so that helps."
Talk a little about the company morale with shows being live on every Thursday.
"I think the morale definitely came up. I think it was looked at as an opportunity. Now we're doing really well with the storylines and ratings, despite the fact we moved to a different time period. The company explained how they saw all the positives with us going live. I think morale is still very high. We're very positive in what we're doing as a tag team. We enjoy and look forward to going out and performing. We get positive feedback."
What are your thoughts about Aces & Eights?
"I'm not really sure where it's going to go. That particular storyline hasn't involved me a lot. I know our company has sat down and mapped up where it wants to go months ahead of time. The end result will be something months of effort have been put into."
You had a compelling and interesting storyline earlier this year with AJ Styles, Dixie Carter and Claire. Why do you think that storyline worked, and what, if anything, didn't work?
"It was something they put a lot of time and thought into, almost a year. The history between me and AJ helped, with our careers being so closely intertwined. I think when people think of AJ's best matches in TNA, my name comes up. AJ's success, notoriety and popularity really made that stick. No one had ever accused a top performer of something like this. The storyline was very Maury Povich. We got "Maury Povich" and "Jerry Springer" chants at the show. When it came time to do the stuff in the ring, it was me and AJ Styles."
What does it mean to be the TNA tag team champions? Explain your label of "The World Tag Team Champions of the World."
"It's a big deal. With the idea of being a team a year ago, we saw a lack of long-term tag teams in TNA. We decided to do a tag team and be a tag team like Motor City Machine Guns and Beer Money. Other circumstances have allowed us to be the best tag team in our company right now. I feel we're the team to beat. I feel we're the target. We've set it up so we've made the belts mean something."
The other guys (WWE) have stepped up their tag team storylines in recent weeks. Has that given your division any extra incentive or motivation recently?
"It's not necessarily motivation. I like to see who is doing well. I noticed four relatively new tag teams in WWE on Raw (two weeks ago). They are all great teams and entertaining. I think that company was responding to their lack of tag teams. I feel like our matches have stood out with entertainment and pure wrestling. It's up to the fans. They are not basing their decisions on whether we are doing well. It's their decision. I don't think you'll see a focus on the tag teams every week like you did on Raw (two weeks ago). Our company sees something good in our tag team."
I believe you have 15 total championships, 10 of which are tag team straps. Do you see yourself staying in tag team competition down the line?
"I've held the tag belts, I think this is my eighth. I've had two tag championships and one TV title in Ring of Honor, and an X-Division championship. I've been lucky to hold championships in my career. This is the most fun I've had and the most support I've had creatively. They are letting us run with it and continue being successful. I'm fine either way. I have fun with my singles stuff, but I've committed to my stuff with Frankie. We both understand the team will only succeed if we put it first. We're both equal parts of this tag team. We both make the effort to make the team the most important part. The more important we make our team, the more important our team is to our fans."
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