Danny Limelight Is On The Cusp Of Superstardom

Poor Danny Limelight has nothing to do.

I’m joking. On the contrary, the veteran of AEW, NJPW, AAA, and several other three-letter indie wrestling promotions around the world has refused to take his foot off the gas, taking “striking while the iron’s hot” to a new level, in and out of the ring. That includes work in the recently released Netflix series “The Brothers Sun,” a role as “El Monstro” in the Amazon series “On Call,” and a short film that he’s writing, producing and starring in.

“I’ve just been keeping my hands in different cookie jars, whether it’s wrestling or acting or writing,” Limelight said in a December interview with FightsATW. “I have a bunch of shows coming up. I’ve got one in Puerto Rico in January. I have some shows all over the U.S. and Mexico throughout this next year, so I’m pretty booked up, but I’ve just been hooking and jabbing and trying to open up doors for myself, as well as my kids.”

On Sunday, Limelight will be at the Infinite Reality Studio in Long Beach, California, to defend the United Wrestling Network championship he’s held for over a year against Peter Avalon. He’ll be back in his element, and despite all the Hollywood work, the ring is still home.

“Right now, wrestling has been at an all-time high for me.”

Sounds like everything has been at an all-time high for the 32-year-old New Yorker, a father of two who doesn’t hesitate to admit that this time in his life is a blessing.

“As we speak, I have a shirt on that says, ‘God Got Me,’” said Limelight. “It is a blessing because I got out of the Marine Corps in 2019 after 10 years of active-duty service and I went full force to professional wrestling. I bet on myself. I had no job, no school behind me. So, I started wrestling.”

He was a quick study who quickly made a name for himself on the indie scene. The sky was seemingly the limit, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. The Marine in him that never left surfaced. He had to come up with a Plan B, C and D. And he did.

“I was very worried for my livelihood,” Limelight recalls. “I was worried how I was going to pay my rent. I was worried about how I was going to provide for my kids and then New Japan Pro Wrestling contacted me. They started doing these studio-style shows with no fans, no audience, just film content and so I started doing that.”

It was a gig, and he took it. But it wasn’t easy, just like it wasn’t easy for all the other pros who had to perform without the fans’ energy to boost them.

“It’s very hard to wrestle without a crowd,” he admits. “You don’t get that same adrenaline rush that you would. So you’re throwing your body around out there, hoping that when this comes on TV, it’s going to look as good as you want it to look because when there’s a crowd, you can hear it. You kind of know where you’re at. So, I was like, man, I really hope whatever I’m doing is going to work so that I can continue to have a job. And thank God, it actually did work.”

AEW called next, and Limelight wrestled there for a year, primarily on the Dark and Dark: Elevation shows, battling the likes of Eddie Kingston, Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley.

“I was really just proving who I am as a competitor,” he said. “And that opened up so many more doors for me. At the same time, during the pandemic, I was auditioning through self-tapes. Thankfully, the studios created this new system for us to be able to audition without being there in person, which kept me in play with shows like NCIS and a couple of films.”

Yet just when the acting gigs were getting bigger and better, the recent Writers Guild of America strike forced Limelight to pivot again. “Fortunately, I had planted enough seeds in the wrestling community that I was able to stay busy and continue to maintain some kind of income through wrestling,” he said.

He pauses, reflecting on the last few years.

“It’s one of those things where I’m fortunate enough that when I was a kid, I said, I want to be a professional wrestler and I want to be in movies. And this is what I do for a living. Now I wrestle and I act.”

A blessing, then?

“I wanted to be in Hollywood since I was a kid, and here I am,” Limelight said. “I live in North Hollywood. I wrestle on TV in my underwear, and I run around jumping off top ropes, throwing my body through all these things. God is keeping me safe, keeping me injury-free. Not that I’m not hurting, not that I’m not sore. It takes a toll on your body, for sure. But that I’ve been able to provide for my family, pay my rent, keep a roof over my head, make sure my daughter and my son are good through the income that I’ve made doing what I love. And that’s a blessing.”

That blessing carries over to those feelings he still has for the squared circle. Wrestling is in his blood, and that will never leave, no matter how many film projects come along to take him away from his first love.

“Oh, it’s very much a part of my life,” he said. “I don’t watch sports anymore. I used to watch the Yankees and the Knicks all the time. All I watch is wrestling. That’s my main job. So until I’m able to fully step away from wrestling to go the full Hollywood route, like the way Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, it’s going to be what pays my bills. But I do have a backup plan. I am also a full-time student. I’m going to school so that I can teach theater and teach art as my backup plan when my body can’t do it no more. So hopefully I can step away from wrestling in the next few years and just live the actor life fully. But until I’m confident that my income is consistent enough where I don’t have to worry about wrestling, the wrestling is going to be my vehicle.”

It’s not easy. And when you’re in, you have to be all-in. Limelight remembers the days of wrestling a match for $20, and he won’t go back to those, so the work outside the ring is as rigorous as that when the bell sounds.

‘It’s something that you have to be committed to,” he said. “You need to be studying tape, you need to be studying footage, you need to be promoting yourself. You look at the wrestlers that make the most money in wrestling, I’ll give you an example: John Cena, every time he comes out, he has a different color shirt, a different color arm band. Look at Rey Mysterio. Every time he comes out, he’s wearing a different kind of mask. He’s giving a mask to a kid. John Cena is throwing his shirt to the crowd, The Rock’s throwing an elbow pad to the crowd. All these fans want to do is feel a part of the show.”

“And, for me, I’m usually the bad guy when I’m in the ring. But, even as a bad guy, I’m able to connect with a crowd member, whether it’s insulting them or responding to one of their messed-up comments or reacting to something that they say about me. But just giving them that reaction when they say it, it makes them feel like, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got in his head, we got him.’ It makes them feel like a part of the show. Or when I’m a good guy and I come out and I’m clapping hands with the kids and the fans or when I take a slam and I sell and I look for a kid in the crowd, I let the kids see my face and that makes them feel a part of it. Now they want to see me get up and beat this bad guy’s butt.”

Films are nice. The bumps aren’t as hard, the money’s better the bigger you get, and there’s something nice about not being on the road two to three hundred days a year. But when Limelight talks about wrestling, you can almost see his eyes light up.

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“I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without the fans,” he said. “And it’s awesome to see the fans that believed in me from the beginning when they first saw me wrestle, and they were like, ‘You’re going to be great.’ And I look back at those matches now and I’m like, man, how did they think I was going to be great then? I don’t know. But some fans, they’ve been fans for years. They know talent, they know charisma, and that’s one thing that, fortunately for me, I’m proud to say is that I’m very charismatic.”

That charisma will take him far in Hollywood, just like it’s taken him far in pro wrestling. And maybe in the literary world, as well, since he’s started writing his biography, “Streetlights to Limelight.” But, for now, there are still spots to hit in the ring.

“My goal as a kid was that I always wanted to wrestle for WWE and at WrestleMania,” Limelight said. “Everybody who starts out, they want to wrestle at WrestleMania. That’s the NBA finals. That’s the Super Bowl. That’s the World Series. So that’s my goal. I don’t know how or when it’s going to happen, but if I just give up now, it’ll never happen.”

The lesson thus far? Don’t bet against Danny Limelight.

“I created Danny Limelight and I somehow managed to make the crowd love me when I’m a good guy and hate me when I’m a bad guy,” he said. “And I can’t explain the feeling, but it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in this world. Wrestling was my vehicle. It’s paid my bills and it’s taken me all over the world. I’ve met so many wonderful people, made so many friends, and so many fans have shown me so much love that I’ll never forget. And that was done through professional wrestling.”

Thomas Gerbasi

Thomas Gerbasi is currently senior editor for BoxingScene.com, Women’s Boxing columnist for The Ring magazine, a contributor to Boxing News (UK) magazine, and a member of the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022 in the non-participant wing. An award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, Gerbasi is also the author of five books. His amateur boxing record was 0-1.

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