Roughneck

Daniel Garcia vs Ariya Daivari, Championship Gold, 20 November 2021 (Championship Wrestling from Hollywood)

Daniel Garcia is fit without being brawny, and he performs on the line between hero and villain. He's not an out-and-out creep, but he does enjoy hurting his opponents - and getting hurt seldom seems to faze him. He absorbs pain as if it were a chilly breeze. Here he is facing off against fellow hunk Ariya Daivari. Ariya has a slight weight advantage and significantly more experience. But few professional wrestlers have Garcia's fighting spirit.

Of all the classic wrestlers, Bret Hart is the model Garcia seems to follow and build on the most, also appropriating Hart's sharpshooter finisher. In his heyday, Hart, too, was both hero and villain, and his influence is felt in Garcia as well as in UK wrestler Chris Ridgeway. Canadian wrestler Kyle O'Reilly, and Japanese wrestler Shinsuke Nakamura.

This is not my favorite Garcia match, but it's good enough to watch a dozen times or more. I haven't seen him in a bad match yet. His trim physique is not the stuff of muscle gods, but he's sexy and tough, and it's the fight and not the muscle that matters most in wrestling - or should matter most. His style is less about acrobatics and posing than giving and taking beatings. Ariya does a decent job of mirroring Daniel's menace, creating friction and fireworks between the two.

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