AEW star Ricky Starks appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he talked about a number of topics including the strap match with Bryan Danielson.
Starks said, “I’m sitting backwards, and that first whack from the leather strap echos throughout the arena. I remember feeling this jolt. Later on, Bryan is tagging me in the face with the strap and he’s like, ‘Are you going to take it? Are you a man?’ This is my theory. I think Bryan thought I was a pussy. I think he thought I was a pussy because of how I look. ‘This pretty boy is going to welt.’ What I’m trying to say is, he wanted to test me, and I love that. I love that he wanted to test me and I definitely think I passed with flying colors.”
On how Danielson yelled at him in a positive way after the match backstage:
“Absolutely we did. He yelled at me in the most positive way in Gorilla and said, ‘You have been given obstacle after obstacle and you have fucking knocked it out of the park every single time. Every single time! Every single time you have delivered when they thought you would drown. That right there, if anybody had an ounce of doubt about you, you have proven them that you are who you say you are. That is a main event.’ That’s what he said to me.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
