AEW star Daniel Garcia recently spoke with Jon Abla on his One-on-One program on AdFreeShows to discuss his love of Bryan Danielson, and how he always knew he would lean into the technical style of pro-wrestling. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Calls Bryan Danielson one of his favorite wrestlers of all-time:
“He’s maybe my favorite wrestler of all-time. 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.”
How he always knew he wanted to be a technician:
“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.”
Leaning into his style on television:
“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.”
(H/T and transcribed Fightful)