Daniel Garcia has already established himself as one of the up-and-coming stars in AEW, sharing the ring with the likes of Jon Moxley, Darby Allin, and CM Punk.
While AEW Rampage: The First Dance was most memorable for being CM Punk's return to wrestling, the main event pitted Garcia against Moxley.
Speaking on AEW Unrestricted, Garcia reflected on his night at the United Center.
"It mostly just kind of hurt, that was the biggest thing about wrestling Jon Moxley. It kinda hurt," he said. "I remember pulling up to the United Center that day, I didn't know I was wrestling there until that week. I remember walking into the United Center, looking around, seeing pictures of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, going out into the arena and seeing the 17,000 seats. It was a pretty wild experience seeing where I was the month prior to a month later. It was a pretty out of body experience, to say the least."
Not only did Garcia main event the night CM Punk returned to wrestling, he was the first man to get physical with Punk in seven years when he and 2point0 (Matt Lee & Jeff Parker) attacked Punk on AEW Dynamite ahead of AEW All Out.
While the follow up to the attack wasn't immediate, Garcia and Punk eventually squared off on the October 8 episode of AEW Rampage.
"That was pretty cool," Garcia said when asked about wrestling Punk. "CM Punk is somebody I've watched for 15 years of my life. I've really looked up to that guy for a very long time, used to be one of my favorite wrestlers, still probably is, he's my mom's favorite wrestler too. When he came in, I was thinking like, 'it'd be cool if I got to wrestle CM Punk, it'd be like a dream come true.' When me and 2point0 attacked him on his second appearance back, I was the first wrestler to have any physical contact with CM Punk in the ring in seven years. Then, we kind of didn't touch upon that for a couple of weeks and I was like, 'Hmm, maybe I won't get to wrestle him for a little bit.' Then, they announced on Dynamite, he just called me out. I was sitting backstage, he called me out, and I checked my phone and I was like, 'Oh, I guess I'm wrestling CM Punk on Rampage this week.' I wrestled him and it was a great learning experience for me. It showed me a lot of things about simple and easy storytelling and not everything has to be hard. Wrestling is very easy if you let it be."
Along with facing Allin, Moxley, and Punk on AEW television, Garcia kept a busy Independent schedule, sharing the ring with the likes of Minoru Suzuki, Alex Shelley, and Christopher Daniels.
When asked about working so many high profile matches in AEW and on the Independent scene, Garcia said, "I feel like I don't have time to feel pressure or excitement. Everything is kind of going so fast and piling up on me so quick that I don't even have time to think about, 'I'm nervous for this match coming up' or 'I'm super excited for this match coming up.' I feel like I'm able to stay very present in that way because there is so much high profile things thrown at me in such a quick amount of time, I feel like the best way to deal with it is to stay in the moment, stay present, focus on the task I have at hand."
Garcia was officially announced as being signed to AEW on October 19. You can find his comments on why he waited so long to sign with the company by clicking here.
If you missed anything from AEW Dynamite, check out Fightful's full report on the show by clicking here.
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