Daniel Garcia recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard ahead of his appearance in this year’s Limitless Wrestling Vacationland Cup. Garcia is a Buffalo native and he spoke about his relationship with The Butcher And The Blade, who are not just two guys that share the same regional background, they’re actually very good friends and mentors.
“I think a lot of times when you have a lot of people from the same area, they might have interacted here and there, maybe wrestled a match or trained together once or twice. In Buffalo, it’s completely different. Butcher and Blade, people think we’re from the same area and we talked once or twice—no, those two dudes are some of my best friends. I talk to them almost every single day in a group chat, the Buffalo guys, Kevin Bennett, Kevin Blackwood, Puf, and The Butcher and The Blade.”
“Pepper Parks is one of my original trainers, he’s my OG. Andy [Butcher] has been a great influence in my life, so it was really cool to wrestle them on such a big stage. I’ve wrestled them a couple of times before, but just to do it at AEW and see them in the main event and getting opportunities wrestling Jon Moxley, just on national television every week is crazy to me. Especially with someone like Pepper Parks who has been in the business for twenty years just grinding, hustling, and not getting any opportunities. For it to pay off for him in the past couple of years, and for Andy to be semi-new in the world of professional wrestling—he’s only been training for about five years—and to see how far he’s been able to take this in a short amount of time, it’s inspiring.”
Garcia got a chance to wrestle both men on AEW Dark this summer, and he said he didn’t feel like he was a student proving himself to his teacher, and it’s become a case where it’s like two friends just trying to show each other up.
“I think I’ve surpassed the level of feeling intimidated or being awestruck of anyone in a ring, let alone someone I’ve spent so much time with on a weekly basis. It’s just me wrestling another human being, trying to beat someone else. It’s really not ‘oh, I’m wrestling my trainer.’ It’s not like that for me anymore.”
Garcia’s other AEW match was a tag team match with Blackwood against Sonny Kiss and Joey Janela on Dark. He talked about the contrasting styles between both matches and said the mark of a good professional wrestler is someone who can adapt to many different styles and excel at it.
