Daniel Garcia was signed to AEW in 2021 but he actually had made his AEW debut on an episode of AEW Dark during the pandemic in 2020, the matches on this show were filmed before and after tapings of AEW Dynamite.
The first major storyline Garcia would be involved in would be with the Jericho Appreciation Society along with Angelo Parker, Matt Menard, Jake Hagar and of course, Jericho.
It’s been said many times that Jericho storylines got NO ONE over, but one could easily argue that this is in-fact the exact storyline that helped Garcia evolve into the character that he is today.
It was here that Bryan Danielson would attempt to recruit Garcia to the Blackpool Combat Club and embrace his technical wrestling side, but instead Garcia would insist that he was a sports entertainer and remain loyal to Jericho for what seemed like an eternity.
Garcia would start wearing flashier ring gear and incorporated his iconic dance into his character. At a certain point Garcia’s dance transcended a simple taunt and became something like a powerup move for him.
You can see this transition being made when Garcia attempted to win back the Ring Of Honor Pure Championship from Katsuyori Shibata during the Death Before Dishonor PPV in 2023. It was in this match where Garcia blended what he was doing with his “sports entertainer” persona and his “pro wrestler” persona and his dancing was used in an offensive manner. This would persist over time and some truly hilarious and entertaining spots would happen with it where Garcia would use it to no sell attacks, chase off referees, or just straight up use it to transform the match from a wrestling match into a FULL ON DANCE OFF!
At the end of 2023 Garcia had an impressive showing in the first Continental Classic Tournament and while it was clear that he would be unable to win the tournament due to losing his first 2 matches, he went out strong by pulling off an upset victory over Brody King from House Of Black. This was a breakout performance and the start of a feud with King that would culminate in a cage match where he would team up with FTR in a winning effort against the dark and foreboding faction.
Garcia would start 2024 off strong with a TNT championship match against Christian Cage at the Revolution PPV where he would ultimately not be able to defeat Christian, but it was clear that the AEW fans wanted to see him come out on top.
And it wasn’t just the fans pulling for Garcia, MJF would reveal that he wanted to see Garcia become a major player in AEW as well and would offer him a match at Wembley Stadium for ALL IN 2024. But before Daniel could accept he would be interrupted by Will Ospreay who would offer him a shot at the International Championship on the next episode of Dynamite.
Garcia would lose his match with Ospreay the following week and would be savagely beaten afterward by MJF.
It is unknown at this time when Daniel Garcia will return to action in AEW.
