In a recent interview with Sports Nightly, Bryan Danielson weighed in on talent development in AEW and the best practices for developing their skills.
Danielson also shared his perspective on learning and training privately rather than trying to improve oneself while dealing with the additional pressure on-camera.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On developing in-ring performance skills by performing consistently: “So I think I’m of the opinion that when you’re younger and learning the craft, you need to wrestle more matches. That’s just that’s my opinion. One of the things that was very helpful for me, because I would go over and I’d wrestle in England… I would go over to England for seven months. There was one point where I wrestled, I think it was like 28 matches in 17 days, or whatever it is, and it was like, it was six months of that, right? I’d go and I’d wrestled these shows for the Butlins crowds, which were, they’re not wrestling fans. They pay for this week-long holiday where they can come and the entertainment is included, and there just so happens to be wrestling as a part of that. So they’re not even wrestling fans, but you’re having to entertain them and that sort of thing through wrestling, and those sorts of things really made me the wrestler that I am today because when I started, I was very good at the technical aspects of wrestling, but what was harder for me was the personality and interacting with the crowd and that sort of thing.”
On giving talent room to improve off-camera: “Nobody comes out of wrestling school the perfect wrestler. There’s always stuff that you have to work on. Even if you’re the most athletic person in the world, or you’re the most charismatic person in the world, you still have things that you need to work on, and you need to be able to work on those things in places where there’s not a million people watching you, you know what I mean? I also think in this day of like, if you’re on TV, and a lot of our younger talent is on social media all the time. If you’re younger, and you don’t have that much experience, people are gonna rip you apart, no matter how good you are for the stage you are at in your career, right? Look at Daniel Garcia, who I think he’s 24, but I could be wrong. Or you look at MJF, he’s only 27. You look at these guys and people will be like, ‘Oh, he’s not this,’ or ‘he’s not that.’ Sometimes, people take it personally. In my head, I want to say, ‘You guys are in your 20s, you’re doing great, and because social media is such a big thing, and it wasn’t when I was 26 and 27, right? Nobody was ripping me apart when I was 26 or 27. In the current day and age, people do that, especially if you’re on national TV. So, I think getting a lot of reps is important. I think getting a lot of reps where less people are going to criticize you is also a helpful tool to learn to do this as best as you can.”
