AEW Name Explains In-Ring Retirement & Injury Status

AEW

Christopher Daniels announced his retirement on the January 22, 2025, episode of AEW Dynamite and has now addressed his future.

Wearing a neck brace to the ring on AEW Dynamite, Daniels revealed that he had been told by doctors that he would not be able to wrestle again.

Speaking on Talk is Jericho, Daniels has now spoke about issues that he had after a match in 2023, the aftermath of which saw him with “hip issues” added to his knee problems.

He would go on to reveal that bone spurs were found in a recent MRI, stating that surgery wouldn’t fix the issues as he explained:

“Like I said, I had been having atrophy on my left arm and shoulder from years before. While this was going on and being an EVP, I looked into getting neck surgery to see, is there something I can do to offset this atrophy and stuff.

“I spoke to surgeons and they had to said to me, ‘Oh, you know what, we did an MRI.’ I’ve got so much spurring on the back of my neck it looks like the skeleton of [a xenomorph] from Alien. There’s all these spurs coming from the base of my skull to the middle of my back, it’s this crazy amount of bone spurs.

“They showed me that first, the MRI, and I was like, woah. They were like, okay, so we can do this procedure where we basically make the space in your spine where the nerves go to your arms, we can make that bigger so there’s less pressure on the nerves.

“I was like, that’s great. He was like, but, you will never get back what you’ve lost, you’re never gonna get back — that atrophy is not going to go away. The main injury that started this is 20 years old.

“I thought, oh, so I can do the surgery and it won’t fix anything? Great, sign me up! That was the end of that thought process like, I can’t get surgery to fix this, there’s no situation where it’s gonna get better.”

Daniels would go on to reveal that he had issues during his Texas Deathmatch with Hangman Adam Page on the January 18, 2025, episode of AEW Collision, highlights of which can be seen below, stating:

“The match happens with Hangman. I was gonna take this move and I ended up sliding a little bit too far down and I actually bumped my head a little bit and got a little tingley in the arm.

“The finish was meant to the Buckshot Lariat to the back of the neck but when it hit, I got a little bit of a jolt again. I’ve had stingers before, I didn’t think anything of it.

“I go check with the docs and they’re like, how do you feel? I feel okay, there’s a little tingling here in this arm. I did another MRI and they’re like, you really should stop doing this. I was like, seriously? They’re like, well, you’re 54 years old, this isn’t going to get any better. The vertebrae in your neck are starting to fuse, so you’re going to get less and less flexible. You’ve taken enough bumps to where any sort of whiplash, the danger 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. Near the end, because of the amount of work I’m doing — I recognize that the stuff I was doing backstage was a little bit more important specifically to the company than my in-ring participation.

“Having that in mind, it’s like, 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.”

Daniels serves as AEW’s Head of Talent Relations having been among the first stars to sign with the company back in January 2019.

Transcript from Fightful.

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• Christopher Daniels
• AEW

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