Last year, during a brief stint working an office job, I was sitting at my computer station going over an inventory list. A co-worker walked in, and considering he was a wrestling fan, I thought he would be interested in hearing about the possiblity of TNA getting picked up by WGN or Spike TV. At the time, TNA was mired in relative obscurity having no television outlet for its weekly Impact program. Worse, its wrestlers were at risk of losing maybe their only chance at the big time. It led the co-worker and I to discuss TNA's top talent. I mentioned "Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels.

He looked at me, paused for a second, and then said "The biggest waste of talent in pro wrestling."

The man had a point. Christopher Daniels, considered by many to be one of this country's most impressive wrestlers of today, never "made it" in the eyes of many fans. Daniels has said, even with reasonable success in Japan, it is always his goal to be big in America. He never became a big star in WWE, WCW or even ECW. Sure, he poked his head into the mainstream for a quick look here and there, but he was not given much more than a fleeting glance. Why not? It could have something to do with his body type, backstage politics, injuries or just plain bad luck. I don't aim to learn why, though. Frankly, it has been discussed to death amoung his fans for over a decade. Instead, I wonder -- now that TNA growing -- whether or not he has made it to be big time. WWE is clearly not all that interested, and now that he has signed a new contract (until 2008) with his current employer, his chances of being a true mainstream star rests on the shoulders of TNA and its success. Is TNA actually mainstream? Do the ratings for Impact constitute the "big time"? Is Daniels even high enough on the ladder in TNA to be considered a big success?

These are questions which I am not confident I can answer, but I will do my best to explore them, and more importantly, I want to take a journey into the past and examine many of Daniels' moments in the sun. Not his entire career but the times in which he was more than "just an indy wrestler."

In 1998, after about five years in the independents, Christopher Daniels was offerred a developmental contract with WWE. Before landing the job, WWE approached him about coming in to be "enhancement talent" (jobber) for an episode of Shotgun Saturday Night. It was the first time Daniels poked his head into the American mainstream.

"I always consider my career to be split up into two sections. It’s kind of before Taka and after Taka. Before I wrestled Taka and before I got onto television, really, I had no contact with the broad wrestling public. Promoters didn’t know who I was. The biggest thing I had done before that was wrestling for Carlos Colon in WWC in Puerto Rico. The opportunity to wrestle Taka was a great opportunity to me and I was very lucky in the sense that Taka was very generous; he was very giving in terms of what he did in the ring together. Someone had mentioned to me after that match, it wasn’t supposed to be a tryout, but because it was so good, it ended up being my tryout, so because of that match, I got a lot of things, not only from the WWF, but from promoters around the world. They saw that match and that was kind of the thing that put me on the wrestling map. My memory of it is spectacular. I usually say it’s one of my best matches I ever wrestled. Not because of what happened in the ring, but because of what happened to my career after the fact." - Daniels (Pro Wrestling Radio)

Jim Cornette gave Daniels a spot in their dojo. Such future stars were there with him, such as Steve Corino, Test and Kurt Angle. However, WWE did not have much for Daniels to do and his time with the company more or less fizzled out. His accomplishments were merely wrestling occassional Shotgun Saturday Night shows.

In 2000, World Championship Wrestling agent Terry Taylor found a spot for Daniels. He would be Syndrome, working an angle with Vampiro. Unfortunately, the idea was thrown out by management. A year later, after some time in Japan and back in the American indies, Daniels was given his next opportunity with WCW. He wrestled Mike Modest, also a rising indy star at the time, live on Nitro. The crowd was into it. Everything was going well -- until Daniels broke his neck. In a botched asai moonsault, the Fallen Angel, on live television, sufferred the worst injury of his career.

"Well obviously, I was disappointed. I mean, it was….such a freak thing because I had actually practiced that spot earlier in the day and hit it every time I tried it and it was just one of those things that happened wrong. It just happened when it shouldn’t have happened. But ya know, I was disappointed it didn’t go well. But the guys in the back, they didn’t really, they cared, but it wasn’t something like a make or break thing that fucked that up. Because they knew that I fucked up, but they appreciated the fact that I got up and finished the match." - Daniels (SoCal Uncensored)

With management impressed with the effort but still on the fence, Bob Ryder was said to have been Daniels' biggest backer for simple reason that if WCW didn't hire him, WWE might. The Fallen Angel had a new contract. This time with World Championship Wrestling. He was sent to the Power Plant to wait his turn to come up with the other new wrestlers. It looked like Daniels was finally going to get his chance to shine. Of course, as we all know, WCW closed for business on March 26, 2001. Daniels had next to no time in the company.

With WWE's purchase of WCW, Vince McMahon and the rest of management had to decide who to bring over. According to an interview conducted by Ring of Honor, Daniels claims that during these upper brass meetings, when Daniels' name came up, the heads gave him a "nay." He was never told why. To WWE's credit, they still used Daniels a couple of times on Jakked, facing the likes of Jerry Lynn and Kaientai.

In 2002, a new promotion was formed with designs on becoming the new #2 in America. With World Championship Wrestling dead and buried, veteran promoter Jerry Jarrett found financial backing and started TNA: Total Nonstop Action. In one of its earliest weekly Pay-Per-View shows, Christopher Daniels was booked and once more given the chance to be a star. TNA was quite small at first, though. It lost money, jumped around networks, had to find new investors and basically seemed like a flash in the pan. That did not stop Daniels from staking his claim as one of the promotion's top wrestlers. On March 2005, after years with the company, Christopher Daniels became X-Division Champion. The division is, without a doubt, TNA's trademark division and the best part of nearly all of their events. Daniels held the title for nearly six months, which is currently the longest X-Division title reign in TNA's short history.

A few weeks after Daniels dropped the title, TNA debuted on Spike TV after a fairly medicore run on Fox Sports Net. On FSN, TNA's Impact averaged a .2 in the ratings. On Spike TV, it averages .8 and shows signs of climbing. On some weeks, nearly a million viewers see Christopher Daniels. He has become very popular upon turning babyface and is currently in a big feud with current X-Division Champion Samoa Joe. Daniels even has his own DVD in stores.

So, with that said, does this mean the Fallen Angel has finally broken into the mainstream? TNA is, without a doubt, the #2 wrestling promotion in America and is gaining ground more and more. On the other hand, when one considers that .8 or .9 ratings aren't that close to the 3.0 or 4.0 ratings that WWE Raw usually receives, it seems like a distant second. At least for now. I suppose it is an argument of semantics of mainstream.

From where I sit, based on the rising position of the company -- as well as Daniels' position in the company, I would argue that Christopher Daniels has made it to the big time......but I would also say that his journey isn't over yet.

"I've had a lot of success there and hopefully a lot more coming." - Daniels (Local 6)