Daniel Garcia explains how he got his start on AEW Dark.
Throughout the entirety of the global pandemic, AEW Dark has provided a place for budding independent wrestling talent to hone their craft and also gain greater exposure. Several of these names have even gone on to sign with the company.
In recent months, Daniel Garcia has burst onto the scene and at the pleasure of having matches against former WWE World Champions such as CM Punk and Jon Moxley.
Appearing on AEW Unrestricted, Daniel Garcia explains how he got his start on the YouTube exclusive series and credits The Blade, one of his trainers, with getting his foot in the door to the promotion that would become his first “home” in professional wrestling and give him his first contract.
“People just started reaching out to me, I think you develop a lot of Independent wrestling clout or notoriety and people end up hitting you up. I think The Blade, Pepper Parks, one of my trainers, I think he was able to put in a good word for me a little bit and I'm sure that didn't harm the cause at all. I think that's how it came together. They were looking for high-profile Indie wrestlers they could put on their show and give an opportunity to and that, plus a recommendation, went a long way."
He continued, “I had about eight months off of wrestling and my first match back was at AEW. At that point, I couldn't really get in the ring because the training facility near my house was closed. I live in New York and COVID restrictions were pretty tight. We were able to do it one day, kind of a closed session, it was me, Kevin Blackwood, and Megabyte Ronnie, we were able to go like one day to train, knock off a little ring rust so being in a wrestling ring wasn't so foreign to us by the time we got to AEW. Before that, I was just doing a lot of HIT workouts. I think that's the best way to prepare for being in a wrestling ring without actually wrestling. I was doing workouts all summer and I didn't find out I was doing AEW until that week, probably two days prior, you know how it is. I felt pretty prepared. It was pretty hot wrestling in Jacksonville, I never wrestled in outside heat like that before. It was kind of an adjustment, but we got through it.”
Daniel Garcia is one of the young superstars AEW has recently added to its roster. However, the youthful names that started with the company in its inception, are now considered to be the “pillars” of the growing company.
Perhaps the most notable of them all, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, gave them that title and explained why in a new interview. Read his comments here.
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