Daniel Garcia always knew he was about the fundamentals.
Daniel Garcia recently spoke with Jon Alba for AdFreeShows.com’s One on One interview series. During the conversation, he talked about always knowing what kind of wrestler he strived to be, even when he was using create-a-wrestler characters in video games as a kid.
“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,” Garcia noted, “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.”
Asked why he felt that way, Garcia said it’s what draws him to wrestling. He said there’s something interesting about the struggles and emotions that performers show, and he wanted to bring something real to the table, and less “robotic” than some other forms of the sport might present.
“I like seeing people show emotions of pain and fighting through adversity. And that’s my favorite thing to see in professional wrestling. And 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,” Garcia explained, “in a 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.”
expensive pain pic.twitter.com/s3PxlO0xD4
— Daniel Garcia (@GarciaWrestling) October 21, 2021
Garcia then spoke about how empathy plays a role in the art of wrestling, and explained how the profession feels like it’s entering a new era. He pointed out that independent wrestling had various waves of one specific style booming, and now it feels like the “era of violence” is coming next.
“I feel like we go through different eras of wrestling, in independent wrestling, anyways. We were in an era of, for a while, it was work rate, and that was coming off of the Ring Of Honor era going into PWG, where it was basically just having the craziest match you could imagine, and that would get you over. And then we transitioned into an era of GIFs, where the match [could be] ‘whatever’ and that’s alright,” Garcia noted, “but as long as you get a clip out of it and it starts trending on Twitter, you’ll get booked and that’ll get you over. Then we got into the era of ‘microcontent,’ as I like to call it, where it was all about the Danhausens, the WARHORSEs, people who are putting out these short little videos, niche stuff, who are getting over a very strong character to a niche audience.
“And now I feel like we’re entering into an era of violence where people just want to see somebody get hurt. [laughs] Deathmatches are super popular now and I hate saying it [in these terms], but ‘shoot style’ pro wrestling is really popular right now. People just want to see somebody get messed up,” he added, “and I feel like those are a couple different eras of independent wrestling over the past couple years.”
Alba noted that shoot style isn’t necessarily a negative connotation, and asked if Garcia found it difficult adapting in any way. Garcia said that bringing that style to a larger environment was actually encouraging, and explained how AEW lets him work his own style, but he has plenty of people he can also learn from in the company.
“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 the 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.”
Daniel Garcia’s full interview with Jon Alba is available now on AdFreeShows.com (subscription required) and it will premiere on YouTube on Saturday, October 23.
Tony Khan recently confirmed Daniel Garcia was signed to a deal with the company, officially making him “All Elite.” Read the announcement and Garcia’s statement at this link.
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