During the latest edition of his “Hall of Fame” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Booker T commented on Bryan Danielson being his pick for wrestler of the year in 2021, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On Bryan Danielson being his pick for wrestler of the year in 2021: “Are we just going on pure wrestling? Of course, there’s a lot of guys out there that I haven’t seen. I know there’s a lot of guys from Japan that are going to be wondering, ‘Where am I at in this conversation?’ A lot of times you have certain people going around giving five-star matches and it may not be the flavor that I really like, so it may not be a five-star match as far as I’m concerned. But for the guy we’ve been watching on American television, let’s just start right there. I’m going to tell you right now, I’ve said Roman [Reigns] is the best in the business right now. His work has been impeccable for the last two years. I’ve said that everybody Roman has gotten into the ring with, Roman has made that person a better wrestler at the end of the day, a better performer, a better sports entertainer, however you want to look at it. He’s made those guys better every single time.
“But when we’re talking about wrestling, I think Kenny Omega is a really good, technically sound guy that can really go out there and go one on one with anybody in the business. Just say for instance a guy like Seth Rollins. Seth Rollins has all the tools to go out there and be one of the great wrestlers, but I don’t think that’s where his head is right now. He’s an entertainer. As far as wrestling goes, [Bryan Danielson] has taken the moniker of wrestler very, very seriously. He wants to go out and perform in the ring and have great matches. Bryan has made a boatload of money, and now it’s about, ‘Man, let me go out there and see how good I am. Let me see how good I am still after a broken neck and after people have written me off. Let me go out there and have my best wrestling matches ever now.’ What he’s been doing has been pretty extraordinary, I must say, because he’s been thinking about going out and bringing that thin line that I talk about so close to that television screen that’s MMA, boxing, wrestling, combat sport, and making every little bitty thing mean something.”
On Danielson’s in-ring psychology and his ability to connect with fans: “It’s taking that motor apart and putting it back together with every little piece as opposed to leaving little pieces out where the fans don’t understand. ‘I’m gonna make you understand why this happened.’ There’s a lot of that going on. For me, personally, I teach my wrestlers that you want to go out there and suspend that imagination of that fan for that 15 or 20 minutes or an hour that you’re out there. You want to make them believe that what you’re doing is different than everybody else on the roster. And Bryan Danielson has definitely given that illusion. I say it all the time, if everybody on the roster thought that way, man, I would have an easy night promoting the show.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
