Daniel Garcia went from one of the hottest unsigned prospects to one of the brightest young stars in AEW.
Before officially signing with AEW on October 19, Garcia became one of the top names in Independent wrestling, drawing comparisons to Bryan Danielson.
With Danielson and Garcia now in the same company, the dream match could soon be a reality.
“He’s maybe my favorite wrestler of all-time," Garcia told Jon Alba in One-On-One. "At least top three. He’s somebody who I’ve studied for years, even before I knew that I was studying wrestling, just by watching him. I would pick up little nuances that he does. I feel like our wrestling styles aren’t as similar as some people like to say they are, but I feel like our, the little things that we do, are a lot more similar than a lot of people would like to notice.”
Much like Danielson, Garcia is renowned for his psychology and technical ability.
Speaking about his wrestling psychology, Garcia said, "I always knew I wanted to be a fundamental, simple professional wrestler. Whenever I would create my guys on the video games, they would always have submission finishers. I think one year my finisher was an elbow drop, not even like a cool Shawn Michaels elbow drop. Just a regular elbow drop. So I always knew I wanted to be like a meat and potatoes, grind you down type of wrestler. Whenever I envisioned myself wrestling, that’s always what I thought I would be. It’s just what personally draws me to wrestling. I like seeing people struggle, I like seeing people show emotions of pain and fighting through adversity. And that’s my favorite thing to see in professional wrestling. I feel like you see a lot of technical wrestlers and a lot of meat and potato wrestlers on TV when you grow up, and they’re all presented in a very specific way. And they’re all kind of portrayed the same. And I wanted to portray that in a different way. In a more way that’s personable to a wider audience, and something that’s not so robotic. Something that feels very real, and just happens to be a technical wrestler."
When asked about putting his style on television, Garcia said, "The environment is encouraging. We have people that really excel at that style. We have people like Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston, people who I don’t want to say are founders of that style, but people who had a really good hand in popularizing that style over the past couple years and the past decade or so. I feel like I can learn a lot from these people, and I feel like I really enjoy sharing a locker room with people that share the same mindset for professional wrestling that I do.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Garcia discussed his decision to sign with AEW. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
You can watch the full interview with Garcia in the video above.
