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Behind The Mic Interviews Jerome Daniels

Posted: Sep 3rd 2015 By: Jimmy McDowell

Hello friends. Good to be with you again. Texas is the home to five promotions in the National Wrestling Alliance. Texas is also the home of Jerome Daniels, who has built up quite the resume in the Lone Star state. He has been NWA 360 Heavyweight Champion, NWA Gulf Coast Heavyweight Champion, 2-time NWA Southwest Tag Team Champion, NWA Texoma Heavyweight Champion, and a NWA Texoma Tag Team Champion. While Jerome covers a lot of ground, he currently calls NWA-Texoma his home promotion. I decided to chat with Jerome to find out more about him, both in and out of the ring.

Jimmy McDowell: Are you a gamer?

Jerome Daniels: Yeah, I?m a pretty avid gamer. I have an Xbox One, Xbox 360, and a PlayStation 4. I also have a retrograded, hybrid-type thing that has Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Super NES (that allows me to play older games). It?s pretty cool.

Jimmy: You like comic books and superhero adventures, right?

Jerome: (sheepishly) A little bit, yeah.

Jimmy: Who is your favorite superhero and why?

Jerome: I?m a story-guy. I like a story with a good hero and a good villain. So I don?t know if I have a favorite superhero, but I?d say probably Batman, because he has the best Rogue gallery.

Jimmy: How long have you been wrestling?

Jerome: In October, it will be eight years.

Jimmy: What made you want to get into the business?

Jerome: I grew up in the 90?s during the Monday night wars. I was in martial arts as a kid, and I like theatre. So when I got out of school, it was like theatre meets athletics meets combat? it?s like a perfect marriage. So I was like, ?Yeah, I?ll do that!?

Jimmy: You touched on a question I was going to ask later, so I?ll go ahead and ask now. You mentioned martial arts? what all kinds do you know?

Jerome: Taekwondo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I?m really focusing on my Muay Thai right now.

Jimmy: (with sarcastic humor) So if this pro wrestling thing doesn?t work out, you could always do MMA, right?

Jerome: Yeah, I could. My thing is, I just try to focus on one thing at a time. Martial arts is a personal journey. I like the journey of testing my limits, to train my mind and my body to be disciplined.

Jimmy: When you were first going through training to be a pro wrestler, did you have any role models or influences?

Jerome: I never wanted to ?be like that guy.? Coming in, I wanted to focus on finding out who I was. But while I was training, I really sat and listened to Skandor Akbar tell me stories.

Jimmy: On your Facebook profile, you have the following listed as your favorite quote:

?Peace is a lie? There is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. I am free??

What does that mean to you?

Jerome: The quote is from the Sith code from Star Wars. I?m sure you can relate, but you know how something you see or read really resonates? really relates to you on a very personal and real level. I read a lot, and I was reading the Star Wars novels. But what it means to me? if you?ve got peace with something, it?s something you don?t care about anymore. If it can make you feel something, if it can make you angry, make you sad, make you happy, you have a passion for it. I try to hold onto those things, positive and negative, that can evoke a personal reaction. And wrestling, for me, is that. The ability to make people think or feel a certain way.

Jimmy: A little while ago, you mentioned theatre. In school did you ever participate in any performance arts?

Jerome: I did a lot of theatre in middle school and high school. I think I?ve done all the clich? high school plays. I?ve done Romeo & Juliet, Great Expectations, plays like those.

Jimmy: On August 21, you took on Jake Logan at an NWA-Texoma event. How?d that go?

Jerome: He and I have wrestled in the same promotions, but never at the same time. He called me out, and so I was like, ?Let?s see what happens!? It was the first time he and I shared a ring together. The match was pretty good, and the crowd was hot. I won by submission.

After speaking with Jerome Daniels, I learned he is a very smart individual outside of the ring, which I?m sure benefits his in-ring psychology as well. As of right now, Jerome is flying solo at Texoma, but he has a lot of friends in the area. I wonder if any of them will start popping up sometime here in the future to have his back. After all, Texas and Oklahoma are known for their? stables? right? Or maybe stables only exist in Kentucky. Time will tell. This is Jimmy McDowell saying so long for now!