Daniel Garcia Recalls Feeling Disrespected By WWE Signing Approach

AEW star Daniel Garcia has spoken about his previous tryouts with WWE and feeling 'disrespected' by the company's approach to signing him. 

The Jericho Appreciation Society member had worked an enhancement match on 205 Live in 2019 (losing to Drew Gulak), before being given a tryout in January 2021. 

According to Garcia, the tryout went well and he was subsequently asked to wrestle another enhancement match for NXT. However, despite believing he would be signed after Triple H shook his hand and said "welcome to the team", Garcia was not initially offered a contract. 

As he mentioned on this week's Talk is Jericho, Garcia was told he would be signed if anyone else showed interest in him first:

"I talked to [former Senior Director of Talent Development] Canyon Ceman right before I left. He said, 'Hey, let me know if any other place has interest because we'll sign you sooner'. In my mind. I'm like, that's disrespectful to me. If you want to sign me, just sign me.

"I was like, okay, if he wants to play that, I'll play it back to him. At the time, I had an interest from Ring of Honor and I knew AEW wanted to bring me back in for extra work. But I was like, I'm gonna make this seem bigger than it actually is. So I said to him, 'With that being said, I'll talk to you very soon'. I think he got kind of hot at me for that. I think it shook him up a little bit. They emailed me a couple weeks later, kind of saying like, 'Oh, we're gonna stay in contact, blah, blah, blah', and then that kind of made me mad. Then I went on a crazy Indie run and then I signed with AEW".

Daniel Garcia signed a full-time AEW contract in October 2021.

H/T WrestlingNews.co