The 15-year plus veteran details one of his most memorable career moments.
Dan Barry made his pro wrestling debut in the early 2000s and established his name in the New York and New Jersey areas. He has competed for the NWA, PWG, OTT and this past summer, he worked several matches for All Elite Wrestling.
Barry was invited onto ‘Knights of The Gimmick Table’ to discuss his careers in wrestling and comedy . He dove into the experience he had wrestling at Rikers Island jail in New York. Dan and fellow talents were told that if something were to happen to them at the facility, the jail is not responsible. He said the inmates enjoyed the show and were reacting big for basic moves.
Dude, we did a show at Rikers Island. So, little ol’ me, I get booked at Rikers Island so naturally, I’m a wrestler, I’m double booked. I have another show after that so I have to do a two-shot like leave Rikers Island to drive to Connecticut because I have another gig. So I’m like, ‘I gotta be on first.’ I’m f*cking politicking hard. We go to get into Rikers Island, they go, ‘Just so you know, we don’t negotiate.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ And they go, ‘If the prisoners take you and hold you up in a room, there’s nothing we’re gonna do. We’re not gonna give one up, we’re not doing any of that. That’s it, you are just there’ and I’m sitting there, in my head — like all the young guys are f*cking tense and freaking out. Not me man. At that point, I wrestled for like f*cking ten years, I’m like, ‘F*ck it. If it’s one-on-one, I’m gonna beat the sh*t out of whoever gets me. I will choke them the f*ck out. If it’s more than one, I am somebody’s b*tch, that’s it. I am gonna be f*cked to death and I don’t even care anymore. It is what it is.’ So I come out, I’m wearing my gear, I have blue gear. I’m a white boy from Long Island, I don’t know f*cking any of this sh*t. I walk in and they start going, ‘SuWoo.’ ‘What was that?’ So I have no idea what’s going on. ‘SuWoo!’ I’m like, ‘Oh sh*t’ so I look over at the guard who’s holding a gun right by ringside, I’m like, ‘What the f*ck are they saying?’ They go, ‘They’re Bloods. They think you’re a Crip.’ I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no! No, no, no, no. Not me. I don’t know what the f*ck you’re talking about.’ Great crowd though. F*cking falsie was a forearm, big falsie, was this regular f*cking forearm. He went down, I hooked the pin, one, two, he kicked, crowd was up. It was amazing. Immediately following that, MAGIC, you remember MAGIC? MAGIC gets out and he grabs the mic to cut a promo. He goes, ‘Let me guess, y’all are innocent?’ And they lose their f*cking mind. They’re like, ‘Yeah!’ All this stuff. He goes, ‘You know the difference between me and you is, I’m going home today.’ Dude, the guard’s like, ‘Who the f*ck told him that was a good idea?’ It’s this whole thing, I’m dying, I’m laughing. I get my sh*t, I leave. It was such a great time though. Dude, it was so good.
Of the two matches Dan worked for AEW, one was a singles against Chuck Taylor and the other was a six-man tag match versus Dark Order’s Stu Grayson, Colt Cabana and Preston ’10’ Vance. Barry remembers Cabana and Grayson allowing him to play his hits during the match because of the short amount of time they had to work.
I was doing comedy, I’m just wrestling and you know, I’m trying to keep — I want to enjoy what I’m doing. That’s kind of it. I’m done — I’m not chasing anything. I got to do AEW which is cool. But like, you know, if I don’t do it again, I don’t do it again. If I do it again, I do it again.
I think I had a combined total of three minutes of in-ring action. I think that’s what [was done]. So I wrestled with these two dudes against Colt Cabana and Dark Order. I wrestled Colt, I wrestled Stu Grayson and I think 10 [Preston Vance], and then I wrestled Chuck Taylor the second match I had there. The first match was those guys and it was just like it was simple and you know, I think Colt and Stu — they gave me time. They were basically like, ‘You’re the only one who’s gonna do anything because we only have X amount of time.’ I was like, ‘Cool man.’ I got to do some cool sh*t, I enjoyed myself. Chuck Taylor was like — we had a sprint basically and it was like, ‘What do you wanna do man?’ I’m like, ‘I’m gonna do an Asai moonsault.’ ‘Like really?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ So I did two moonsaults in that match and then took two piledrivers and that was my match. It takes two to beat me daddy. You can’t just beat me with one. You see this neck? You see this f*cking neck? Look at this thing, I ain’t losing.
Barry last wrestled several months ago. He is currently sidelined with an MCL injury.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Knights of the Gimmick Table with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
