Daniel Garcia On Reason He Waited To Sign With AEW, His Message To Critics Who Think He Lacks Personality

In a recent interview on One on One with Jon Alba, Daniel Garcia discussed the reason he waited to sign with AEW, his message to critics who think he has no charisma or personality, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Daniel Garcia on the reason he waited to sign with AEW: “You always gotta bet on yourself. You always have to bet on yourself. I never wanted to be the guy to sign somewhere just to say I got a big contract. I don’t want to go somewhere and be a body, and I don’t want to go somewhere that doesn’t have a plan for me. Obviously, I had opportunities in a bunch of places, and the timing just didn’t feel right. I can’t explain it. I don’t know why. I feel like my mom has given me very good intuition in life, and the timing just didn’t feel right for a lot of those places. She helped me grow up and helped me to take my time and not rush into things and not to rush the process. The past year or so, a bunch of opportunities arose, but I knew that I didn’t want to go anywhere just to say I got a contract. I wanted to go somewhere and instantly be a top player, and I want to be a major play in whatever company I decided to go to. Also, in a non-selfish way, I knew I didn’t want to go somewhere until, one, the indies were in a better position than when I found them and, two, until I felt like I was undoubtedly the best wrestler on the independent circuit. For a while, the independents were looking a little bit weak and not a lot of talent was there, but over the past couple of months, a bunch of very talented people have come through and made names for themselves like Bryan Keith, Mysterious Q, YOYA, Janai Kai. I feel like we can leave indie wrestling alone now. I don’t think they need me. For a while, selfishly, I was like, ‘Man, they need me here to help teach people, they need me here to be a draw and better the product.’ I feel like I definitely accomplished my goal of being regarded as the best wrestler on the independents. I was happy to step away for the time being.”

On working with 2point0: “2point0 is great. They’re veterans who have experience at every different level of professional wrestling. Not a lot of people know that about them. They wrestled in Chikara, they did a tour of Japan, and obviously, they worked for WWE. So they have seen every aspect of what professional wrestling is, and I am somebody who has only seen that from the outside looking in. I have wrestled for a lot of places obviously, but primarily just in the United States and Canada, which is kind of the same market. They are able to teach me a lot about what the TV audience wants to see. They’re great helpers and I feel like, on paper maybe our characters and personalities wouldn’t mesh together, but I feel like once you see it, you get it and I think we are magic together…..I feel like we are people who can pull out of each other, I can pull the serious side from them a little bit more and they can pull more of a goofy side out of me.”

On his message to critics who think he has no charisma or personality: “I really feel like I can be a Swiss army knife of a performer. I really feel like I can do that. I see a lot of people on Twitter saying things like ‘Daniel Garcia has no personality. Daniel Garcia has no charisma. Daniel Garcia can’t talk.’ First of all, from what I have shown so far in AEW that’s not true, if you think that’s true you’re watching on a very surface level. But I feel like, if you think that now, once I get the ball rolling a little more and give me a few months, there’s not a person on planet Earth that will be saying that about me. I think a lot of people think that in wrestling, personality is just being loud. That’s a personality, but that’s not what every personality is. Being stoic and calm and calculated, that’s a personality too. If that’s presented in a good way, that’s just as good as any other personality in wrestling.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit One on One with Jon Alba with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.