Home » Erick Redbeard Recalls Conversation With Brodie Lee About Being Paired With Daniel Bryan in WWE, His AEW Experience

Erick Redbeard Recalls Conversation With Brodie Lee About Being Paired With Daniel Bryan in WWE, His AEW Experience

Erick Redbeard spoke with Joseph Galizia of Wrestling Headlines about his Netflix series “I Think You Should Leave.” The following highlights were sent to us:

His favorite 2023 match:

“I love those big guys beating the crap out each other. Drew Sheamus vs. Gunther was my favorite bout of the year.”

When he learned about being utilized, Tony Khan brought him in for Revolution 2022, and Tony Khan paid for his airfare so he could still make The Big Event:

I heard about it a few days before I arrived for the, I believe it was a live Rampage, and they told me the gist. ‘Hey, I’m not wanting to cancel things,’ I said to Tony. I had planned to attend the Big Event on Saturday.’ He was gracious enough to pay for the return flight out there and back. I was thinking, “I can’t say no to this.” This guy is paying for me to continue making money. So… yeah. But, yes, it was at the last minute. But, you know, guys like Aleister, Buddy, and, you know, Neville/PAC. I adore them two. So any chance to spar with ’em, I’m all for it.

He claims to have discussed being teamed with Daniel Bryan in 2019 with Jon Huber (Brodie Lee):

I remember walking into work and thinking, okay, I’m heading there to get cleared and because I tore my right bicep during the SummerSlam battle with the Bludgeon Brothers. And two days later, I had to push through that injury for a really great bout with New Day, which was a no DQ match. I remember walking in and seeing that they weren’t using Jon at all. I was completely expecting to do nothing except reunite. And I was asked, “Hey, do you have a flannel shirt?” ‘Here’s what we’d like you to do.’ So I call Jon straight soon because if you’re tag partners with someone, you don’t simply say, ‘Yeah sure, I’m going to do this solo run or I’m going to do this.’ You, for example, are having a chat. As a result, I informed him that this was not my idea. Are you okay with it? I’m not going to do it unless you are. And you know what? He’d want what’s best for me. So, as far as what people think or whatever…you’re watching a program, and the show is intended to be full of surprising things, friendships, and all sorts of things, you know? So there’s a chance to do this strange coupling thing.I was completely in favor of it.

How he scarcely took any pinfalls during that period, and how much of that was because Bryan batted for him:

And as for expectations, whenever I was told not to take the pinfall, that was not from the office, but from Bryan. Bryan wanted me to appear tough and domineering since it would only benefit his heel character. And I’ll be grateful to him for that rub for a while. But, believe it or not, they didn’t want me to be so domineering. It was and to his credit and his business mind. As if he was intelligent enough to, you know, pitch for me. As a result, I appreciate it.

On the differences between competing in front of a WWE crowd and an AEW crowd:

“You know it’s weird because to me I was pretty much constant besides being hurt with WWE for so long and that grind goes a long time and the atmosphere at times the morale is down, but that’s everywhere. And sometimes you have this quote unquote push and you have this revitalized outlook and like, ‘oh, they’re giving me promo time.’ This is like pumping me up and wants me to, you know, explore new avenues of like how to quote unquote get over. But it’s mostly just developing your character and letting people know who you are and who you wanna be portrayed as, as whatever character you are portraying no matter what storyline you have. And at times you’ll be given a storyline and they say, ‘don’t talk’ and ‘do this thing that makes no sense.’ And it’s not challenging and it obviously doesn’t like give you that adrenaline when you go out in front of the crowd that you should be having.””There were times, especially towards the end with the cage gimmick where I’d walk out and I know I have a two minute squash match, which it’s not challenging to me. I was given time with Malakai (Black) for a couple matches and those were fun. Even though I had the gimmick in the cage, it was fun because it was a match and you had time and you could feel the crowd’s energy cuz you could tell the story at least within the confines of the match. So then fast forward to AEW for me it’s, it’s different because like I’d been gone for so long on a big stage to come back and there’s an arena full of people and it’s not just an empty warehouse.””And I think that kind of gets you…I don’t know…the workers always talk about that feeling you get when you walk out or the feeling you hear from a crowd and how it amps you up and it does, it amps you up. It gives you energy and gives you a new step and like, you know, that extra gear to, to really wanna push forward and move on. So in that aspect, when I went to AEW it kind of lit a fire under my butt. I still like this. I still like to do this. Whether or not I get opportunities to, to show it, I don’t care. I just know I love the business and I have a certain way of thinking about what I want to show and I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten to show the world what I can do and I would love to.”