Christopher Daniels gives his take on Tiffany Stratton‘s version of his moonsault.
All Elite Wrestling’s Christopher Daniels was a recent guest on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet. While discussing the BME (Best Moonsault Ever), Daniels explained how he came up with the move and its name.
“Okay, so I was always a moonsault guy. I always wanted to do a moonsault,” Christopher Daniels said. “The Great Muta inspired me to do a moonsault. And so I started to learn a moonsault, like early 94 95 I was even doing it. I remember doing it for the first time in Puerto Rico when I was in WWC. So I was training one day in windy city, and there was a Mexican wrestler that was there, it wasn’t anybody famous, I don’t even remember the gentleman’s name, but I saw him bounce from the second [rope], bounce to the top, do a cross body.
“And I thought, Oh, that’s cool. At the time, I was playing with this moonsault where you stand on the top rope and then you jump up and bounce. You basically turn and bounce, like Mark Mero had done. So I was doing that for a little bit and having sort of good success with it. But then I thought.
“Oh, maybe it’d be easier if I just did this bounce-bounce thing. And so for the longest time, I just called it the double bounce moonsault. I wasn’t doing it on television at that point, so no one was calling it the double bounce moonsault, no announcers were calling it.
“It was just me when I would say, Hey, okay, this, this, this, and then I’ll hit you with the double bounce moonsault. So somewhere along the lines in TNA, you know, I’m a Simpsons fan. So everything that Comic Book Guy said was like best comic book ever. And I thought, haha! So I was like best moonsault ever. So that was where I got that from.”
Christopher Daniels applauds Tiffany Stratton’s prettiest moonsault ever
WWE Women’s Champion Tiffany Stratton uses a version of Daniel’s moonsault as her signature move, which she calls the Prettiest Moonsault Ever. Daniels said he appreciated how Stratton didn’t just copy his move but added her own twist to it.
“I don’t know Tiffany at all. I’ve never met her,” Christoper Daniels said. “But the fact that she didn’t just copy it, she sort of adjusted it, which is what the greats do. I feel like they don’t just steal. If we are inspired by something, we try to put our own little spin on it. And so the fact that she goes from the bottom all the way up and then to sort of like, pay homage, call it in that same vein, PME, I was like, that’s pretty cool. I can’t be mad at that.”
Christopher Daniels reveals the secret behind his iconic moonsault
Daniels said, “Yeah. I mean, for me, the idea was using the top rope to sort of balance yourself until you bounce, and then once you bounce, it’s basically push from the top and bounce off the second at the same time to go straight. And you just got to keep your eyes on the ropes. So, I mean, I wasn’t perfect all the time, but I very rarely flubbed it. And just very lucky to be able to do it and keep doing it as long as I did.”
