Bio

Danny Davis “The World Famous Bad Guy Referee,” is widely-known for his time officiating for WWE. Wrestling under the ring name “Dangerous” Danny Davis and also the mysterious masked loser named “Mr. X” who practically never won a match, this personality has done it all. He went from ring crew, to merchandising, to refereeing, to wrestling – even teaming with the Hart Foundation at Wrestlemania III in a semi-main event!

REFEREE & MR. X

Danny Davis started out in 1981 in the World Wrestling Federation as ring crew. He moved his way up to head of ring crew and also was in charge of merchandise for a time. After displaying a great work ethic, Vince McMahon gave his a job as a referee to officiate matches under his birthname name, Danny Davis.

After some time, Chief Jay Strongbow and other legends taught him how to wrestle, due to his athletic ability. Then, he also started to wrestle from 1984 to 1986. As a wrestler, he was a masked “jobber” as they say, called Mr. X.

The reason for the mask was simple; he worked matches masked so that the fans did not realize he was also a referee. This allowed him to work double-duty and fill out cards whenever needed. It also gave him an extra payday.

The Mr. X character was a loser who almost never won. Because of this, he was able to work with some of WWF’s top stars to make them look good. The list including former WWF Champions Pedro Morales and Bruno Sammartino, and even Bob Backlund.

As Mr. X, people in the back office started to take notice of his continual hard work. Again, Danny would sometimes set up the ring, wrestle a match, shower up, and then referee a match – all in the same evening! The WWF booking committee consisted of some guys who had been around for a while and had an interest in the company. Before it was a publicly traded company, a number of the guys like Jay Strongbow, Tony Garea, Gorilla Monsoon, and Bruce Pritchard had some stake in how things were run, almost like part owners. This allowed them to have a hand in booking from time to time, and consequently, they decided to throw him a bone.

Danny Davis’ character, Mr. X, was then written into the 1986 King of the Ring tournament.

Although the King of the Ring tournament was not made into a pay-per-view event until 1993, the original King of the Ring tournament was held in 1985. In this second year of the annual event, Mr. X was given a bye to the second round, where he eventually lost to Billy Jack Haynes. (The second King of the Ring winner, Harley Race, parlayed his victory into an arrogant King of Wrestling gimmick, featuring a regal cape and crown.)

Mr. X continued to be on a roll. On the October 28, 1986 episode of WWF Prime Time Wrestling, Mr. X then went against his normal character. He finally won a match on television! His win was an unexpected victory against a newcomer named Rudy Diamond. Incidentally, the powers-that-be were actually testing Rudy out, to see how he would react to having to lose to Mr. X. Since fans never saw much of Rudy after that, one could surmise that the newcomer failed the test. However, this was just the beginning of some success for Danny Davis.

WORLD FAMOUS BAD GUY REFEREE

Getting a rub from the office, Danny Davis continued to impress officials. This is when WWF creative came up with an unprecedented storyline where the third man in the ring actually had a personality. This is when Danny Davis took on the role of a blatant crooked referee that showed clear favoritism toward certain wrestlers who were established rule-breakers.

In Danny’s most remembered storyline, he helped the Hart Foundation (Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart) win the coveted WWF Tag Team championship by showing one-sided calls during the match that led them to victory. After doing so, he was “fired” from his duties as referee by the then WWF president, Jack Tunney.

After leaving his role of referee behind, he began co-managing the Hart Foundation, almost as an internship, leading to his new career as a wrestler; “Dangerous” Danny Davis. As this character, the Dangerous One debuted wresting at WrestleMania III in a six-man tag match, leading the Harts to victory once again against The British Bulldogs with their partner Tito Santana – who Danny had also screwed out of a title (WWF Intercontinental) in a match against Macho Man Randy Savage.

After a successful run with the Hart Foundation, Danny advanced to the semi-final round at King of the Ring 1987. He went on to feud with Jake the Snake Roberts, Koko B Ware, The A-Team’s Mr. T, and Sam Houston.

After the run had ran its course, Danny Davis was eventually reinstated as a referee  From this point on, his officiating style was straight down the middle, and the evil referee gimmick was dropped completely.

Following his return to officiating matches, his biggest referee appearance was after a match at WrestleMania IX where Hulk Hogan used a foreign object to attack his opponents in a tag team contest. Davis came to the ring from backstage and disqualified Hogan overturning the victory for Hulk Hogan.

Soon after this, Danny was soon faced with a difficult decision he had to make; personal life over professional life. For more on this and more about Danny’s life, check out his book HERE.