Daniel Garcia’s WWE tryout and match on NXT in January of 2021 went so well that Triple H welcomed him to the team afterward, however, Daniel is now explaining why he did not end up in WWE.
Daniel Garcia is one of the brightest young talents in all of AEW and has done so well that he has even headlined more AEW programs than anyone else this year. However, Daniel Garcia was almost a part of the NXT system in 2021. He had previously done extra work for WWE and after undergoing a tryout with the company, Daniel, as Dante Rios, competed against Tyler Rust accompanied by Malcolm Bivens on the January 27, 2021 episode of NXT.
Just a year-and-a-half later, none of those involved in that segment are with WWE anymore and on the most recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Daniel Garcia explains that even though Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and more loved his initial outing, he felt disrespected by the company when Canyon Ceman, who is also no longer with WWE, told him that they would sign him quicker if he had interest from any other company.
“I think, a year into wrestling, I did actually work for WWE. I wrestled Drew Gulak on WWE 205 Live in a 15-second match, he beat me up pretty bad. It was pretty nasty, pretty ruthless. Then I had a WWE tryout in January of last year and I had a match on an NXT right after the tryout,” Daniel recalled. “They asked me to stay another day to go and have a squash match against Tyler Rust. He was in Diamond Mine with Roderick Strong. The match went really well. I went through the back and Shawn Michaels loved it, Road Dogg loved it, A-Train loved it, Triple H shook my hand and said, ‘Welcome to the team!’ I think he thought I was signed, but I wasn't at the time.
"In my mind, I'm like, ‘I guess I'm going to NXT. Mom, I'm moving to Orlando," Garcia carried on. "I talked to Canyon Ceman right before I left and he said, ‘Hey, let me know if any other if any other place has an interest in you because we will sign you sooner.’ In my mind, that's disrespectful to me. If you want to sign me, just sign me. Then, I remember, I was like, ‘Okay, he wants to play that. I'll play it back to him.’ He said, ‘So if you're gonna sign anywhere else, talk to me sooner and at the time,’ I had like, interest from Ring of Honor and I knew AEW wanted to bring me back in for extra work. But I was like, I'm gonna make this seem bigger than it actually is. So I said to him, ‘Well, with that being said, I'll talk to you very soon.’ I think he got kind of hot me for that. I think that shook him up a little bit and they emailed me a couple of weeks later, kind of saying like, ‘Oh, like we're gonna stay in contact,’ blah, blah, blah. Then that kind of made me mad and I went on a crazy indie run that got me signed with AEW.”
Now, Daniel Garcia is paired with Chris Jericho as part of the Jericho Appreciation Society. On June 29th, they will compete inside of Blood & Guts. Learn more here.
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