10 Wrestlers AEW Plucked From Complete Obscurity

5. Daniel Garcia

Britt Baker Wardlow
AEW

Carving out a spot as something as an indie darling long after the term was made redundant by social media feeds fostering just about any piece of contemporary wrestling footage you could wish for, Daniel Garcia still felt like a hidden gem in spite of a) dominating the scene and b) very briefly cameoing for WWE in January 2021.

Cast as the hard nut mate of fellow black-and-gold alumni 2point0, Garcia will eventually break away from the loudmouth duo, and could easily, easily carry himself as a genuine threat to the TNT Title as either a heel or babyface in the process.

It's not just that he's been booked to go measure for measure with the likes of CM Punk, Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston, but that these men have seen the potential in elevating someone so young in such a fashion too. He loses almost all the time at present but then proceeds to hyper analyse the nature of his defeats on Twitter after the fact.

This is multi-dimensional character building, and the sort a television platform benefits exponentially. In a year that brought back Punk and Christian Cage and signed Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson, securing Garcia's signature might prove to be the shrewdest deal of the year.

 
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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett