Daniel Garcia on Using His Ring Psychology-Focused Style on TV, Studying Bryan Danielson

– Jon Alba’s One-on-One recently interviewed AEW wrestler Daniel Garcia, who discussed his career, Bryan Danielson being his favorite wrestling, and more. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Daniel Garcia on Bryan Danielson: “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.”

Garcia on wrestling psychology: “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.”

On using his style on TV: “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.”

Daniel Garcia officially signed with AEW earlier this month.