Daniel Garcia Responds To Fans Who Say He Has No Personality Or Charisma

New AEW signee, Daniel Garcia recently appeared on the One on One with Jon Alba podcast where he reflected on turning down offers before joining Tony Khan's company, as he felt the need to bet on himself and prove he was the best wrestler on the independent scene.

"You've always got to bet on yourself, I never wanted to be the guy that signed somewhere just to say that I got the contract. I don't want to go somewhere and be a body, I don't want to go somewhere that doesn't have a plan for me. I had opportunities at a bunch of places but the timing just didn't feel right, I can't explain it. I don't know why but 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. The past year or so, a bunch of opportunities arose, but I knew 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 a major player in whatever company I decided to go to. Also, in a non-selfish way, and I don't want to sound braggadocios, but I knew I didn't want to go until the indies were in a better position than when I found them and until I felt like I was undoubtedly the best wrestler on the independent circuit."

Garcia was involved in plenty of AEW Dark tapings before he ever officially signed with the company, but even though he had several matches on the show, he doesn't believe that he had one specific match where AEW decided they had to sign him.

"So, AEW was my first match back after the pandemic. I had, however many months off but my first match back was me and Kevin Blackwood against The Butcher and The Blade. Then I think that week we did me and Kevin Blackwood against Joey Janela and Sonny Kiss, fun little matches but they were nothing to write home about. Then the next couple of months I was just grinding it out on the indies, then I came back I believe in May to do Dark matches again for tapings. I wrestled Joey Janela again, I wrestled Lee Johnson and the matches were a little bit more competitive. I felt like I was able to show a little bit more of who Daniel Garcia actually is. I don't even know if I was able to prove myself during those, I think a lot of what people have seen from me was based on independent work. So I am not sure if there was a specific moment where somebody saw me and was like 'we need Daniel Garcia from this AEW Dark match.' I'm not sure there was a moment from that, but if I had to guess it was maybe my match with Lee Johnson, that was my best AEW Dark match up to that point."

After appearing on AEW Dark, Garcia got the opportunity to work on AEW Dynamite for the first time where he teamed up with 2point0 to face Darby Allin, Jon Moxley, and Edie Kingston. Since then he has worked with the tag team several times and he praised the duo for how helpful they have been to him.

"2point0 was great, they're veterans that 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, of course, 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."

Garcia continued, stating that he and 2point0 can bring different things out of each other as he made it clear that anybody who thinks he doesn't have any personality will not be thinking that in the near future.

"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. 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 '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 give me a few months, there's not a person on planet Earth that will be saying that."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit One on One with Jon Alba with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.