Dangerous Danny Davis

Daniel Davis (born March 28, 1956) is an American former professional wrestling referee and wrestler best known under the ring name "Dangerous" Danny Davis when he worked for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).

For years, he competed as Mr. X, a masked wrestler while also working as a referee.

As a referee, Davis played the role of a crooked referee who showed blatant favoritism toward certain wrestlers, with the storyline that this eventually led to his removal as a referee.

He then helped manage The Hart Foundation and began wrestling as "Dangerous" Danny Davis.

Danny Davis started out in 1981 in the World Wrestling Federation as a referee under his birthname ring name Danny Davis.

He also wrestled from 1984 to 1986 as the masked Mr. X, working masked so that the fans did not realize it was a referee in the ring.

The Mr. X character was a jobber who won very few matches.

He wrestled some of the WWF's top stars, including former WWF Champions Pedro Morales and Bruno Sammartino.

He also participated in the 1986 King of the Ring tournament.

He was given a bye to the second round but lost his match to Billy Jack Haynes.

His biggest win as Mr. X came on the October 28, 1986 episode of WWF Prime Time Wrestling when he defeated fellow jobber Rudy Diamond.

Starting in 1986, Davis was involved in a storyline that saw him act biased in some matches and had him involved in several controversial matches in which he was thought to favor the heel (villain) wrestlers.

To push the idea that he was a crooked referee Davis would often make fast pinfall counts in the side of heel wrestlers and disqualified face (fan favorite) wrestlers with little or no provocation.

WWF commentator Gorilla Monsoon accused Davis of accepting bribes, pointing to Davis' wealth as evidence as a means to make the fans dislike Davis.

Davis involved himself in a steel cage match between face Hulk Hogan and heel Paul Orndorff.

When both wrestlers escaped the cage at the same time, Davis declared Orndorff the winner, while referee Joey Marella stated that Hogan won.

As a result, the match had to be restarted, and Hogan eventually won.

By acting as a biased referee many of the fan favorite wrestlers would attack him after the matches, using the attack as a way to give them a measure of revenge on the crooked referee after "unfairly" losing the matches.

Davis would also overreact to wrestlers putting their hands on him, disqualifying them as part of the storyline.

Davis also feuded with the Killer Bees (a team composed of Jim Brunzell and B. Brian Blair) for a while, due to Davis disqualifying Brunzell and Blair in the matches that he refereed.

He competed at several major WWF events, during which his team won a six-man match at WrestleMania III and advanced to the semi-final round at King of the Ring 1987.

On the January 26, 1987 edition of Superstars (aired February 7, 1987), The Hart Foundation defeated The British Bulldogs to win the WWF Tag Team Championship.

Danny Davis was the referee for the match and as part of the storyline, he allowed the Hart Foundation to use illegal double-team maneuvers in the match.

As a result of the match, WWF president Jack Tunney stripped Davis of his referee duties.

That same night, Davis was approached by manager Jimmy Hart about joining his stable of wrestlers.

Davis joined up with Jimmy Hart and the Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) and became known as "Dangerous" Danny Davis.

He accompanied the Hart Foundation to the ring for their matches and often became involved by attacking the Hart Foundation's opponents from outside the ring or entering the ring to reverse pinfalls by placing Hart or Neidhart on top of their opponents.

At the beginning of his suspension as a referee, Davis was involved in a scripted storyline in which he occasionally came to the ring and insisted that he would referee a match.

This led to officials from the state athletic commission removing Davis from ringside.

Davis appeared on Piper's Pit, an interview segment hosted by Roddy Piper to discuss his decisions as a referee.

Davis refused to admit to any wrongdoing and was confronted by Marella, who criticized him.

The segment ended with Piper attacking Davis.

At WrestleMania III, Davis made his in-ring debut when he teamed up with the Hart Foundation to defeat the British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid) and Tito Santana (Santana's inclusion was explained that Davis had been the referee when Tito had lost the Intercontinental Championship to "Macho Man" Randy Savage who had used a foreign object to get the win even though the heel gimmick had not actually started at that time).

Davis got the pin on Smith after he hit him in the head with Jimmy Hart's megaphone.

His next major appearance was in the 1987 King of the Ring tournament.

Davis defeated Tito Santana and Junkyard Dog before being eliminated in the third round by Randy Savage, who went on to win the tournament.

During 1987, Davis was booked in several series of matches: against Koko B. Ware, George Steele, and Jake Roberts.

The feud with Ware included a match televised on the April 13, 1987 episode of Prime Time Wrestling, which ended in a draw.

Ware won most of the matches, but Davis won several matches after using foreign objects to attack Ware.

He was later reinstated as a referee and remained with the company until the mid-1990s.