Christopher Daniels Has New Challenger For DEFY Interim Championship

Five years ago, a soon to be 46 year old Christopher Daniels was on his way to winning the Ring of Honor World Championship for the first time. Nick Wayne, meanwhile, was an 11-year-old still navigating through middle school. Now the two will find themselves opponents in one of the top US indie promotions.

As announced on DEFY Wrestling's Twitter page, Daniels will defend his interim DEFY interim Championship against Nick Wayne at the DEFY Year 5 event. The show will take place on February 12 in DEFY's usual venue Washington Hall.

This will be Christopher Daniels' first defense of the DEFY Interim Championship, which he won after defeating Brody King at DEFY Dark Horse on December 18. Canadian wrestler Randy Myers remains the DEFY Champion proper but is unable to defend the championship due to travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Daniels, who also serves as AEW's Director of Talent Relations, hasn't appeared onscreen in AEW since May of 2021, when he and SCU teammate Frankie Kazarian were forced to disband after the team lost a AEW World Tag Team Championship match to the Young Bucks. Daniels took the rest of the summer off and has since worked promotions like DEFY, New Japan Strong and Impact wrestling in the fall and winter of 2021. He also wrestled on shows that took place at Chris Jericho's Rockin' Rager at Sea Cruise.

For the now 16 year old Nick Wayne, this will arguably be the biggest match of a career that is beginning to take off. The son of the late Buddy Wayne, Nick Wayne has gained notoriety for his appearances in GCW throughout 2021 and in DEFY. His most notable match to date was a singles match against AEW/GCW star Joey Janela at DEFY Brutalist, where he defeated Janela in a major upset.

The match with Christopher Daniels will be only the second singles title match Nick Wayne has had in his career. The current 5CC Wrestling Champion for Pacific Northwest promotion 5CC Wrestling, he won the title in a five way match and has defended it only once in singles action against Adrian Quest.