Daniel Garcia talks to Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp all about his signature dance; Mina Shirakawa's viral adaptation of his gyrations, when and where to dance aggressively, and more.
Daniel Garcia joined the Jericho Appreciation Society to prove he could be a great sports entertainer. He added more versatility and personality to his overall presentation, and at the time, he was already considered one of the brightest technical wrestling prospects in AEW.
However, following his return to AEW at AEW All In 2024, Daniel Garcia is fully locked in and focused on success and vengeance against Maxwell Jacob Friedman. In the absence of his own dancing, Mina Shirakawa has successfully adopted Garcia's crowd-pleasing posturing.
Speaking to Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp, Garcia explained that he believes Shirakawa makes the move better than he does, and since he is closing that chapter of his career, he is fully okay with the dance being more closely associated with Shirakawa.
"Mina is somebody who — she can do it better than me. She can have it now. She got it."
When discussing his own success with the dance, Garcia credited his consistency. Garcia would say that anything can takeoff with the right power behind it, but even he was surprised with how popular his dance was.
"If you’re consistent with anything and give it the proper platform, and you’re talented enough and believe in it enough, you can make anything take off. I am a little surprised the lengths it went to. I’m not saying it was a crazy pop culture move or anything, but Chris Brown put videos of me dancing on a story. An NFL player did it. A bunch of rappers posted videos. It went really viral on meme pages and got millions of likes. I’m surprised it went to those lengths. In wrestling, I knew what I was doing. I expected it to take off in the wrestling world. I didn’t expect it to do so much numbers in the non-wrestling world."
Occasionally, Garcia would have to move his hips more aggressively, even occasionally dancing mid-match, letting his bulge bash his opponents in the head. When asked about his aggressive movements, Garcia said there is a time and a place for everything, and while he's enjoyed that time in his career, he's glad to be leaving it behind.
"There’s a time and place. Sometimes, you do it soft. Sometimes you do it hard. Sometimes you do it aggressive. You don’t do the dance the same every time. Just like wrestling, you have more than one speed. You’re not going to start a match going a million miles an hour. When you do the dance, you have to warm it up a little bit, depending on the situation. It’s something I’m definitely proud of, but it’s a chapter I’ve closed."
Elsewhere in the interview, Garcia spoke about his return to AEW in Wembley Stadium at AEW All In 2024. Fans can check out his comments at this link.
Garcia hopes to be dancing all over MJF's face at AEW All Out 2024. However, the odds are not in his favor. Learn more about the betting odds for the upcoming event here.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW All Out on Saturday, September 7. Fans can check out the current lineup for the show by clicking here.
Watch the full interview with Garcia in the video above.
