William Regal was a main player in WWE NXT.
Former NXT General Manager and current AEW manager William Regal was one of the faces of WWE's now former black and gold brand. Regal, like virtually every new AEW-signee appeared on the Talk Is Jericho podcast and delved into the powers at be when it comes to the previous iteration of NXT.
“NXT started, I was the first person, as far as I know, that [Triple H] called and said, 'what's your vision for this?' We did what we did and it was a great thing for a lot of people. I have no ill will at all for anyone," Regal explained. "I'm really happy. It needed some kind of change because things change. [AEW] had come along and different things. For whatever reason, it came a point where I got to wrestle Cesaro. Going into that, I didn't look great. I had withered arms by then and I knew I had a bad neck, but didn't realize how bad. I'm the only wrestler in the world that I know who has four discs fused. Usually, it's two to three. I've got four. Most of the people we went to see, my job was to fill Network content or 'we're maybe going there, we need somebody from there.' Canyon Cemen is a hell of a fella. When he came on board, Triple H was like, 'Can you look after him?' I said, 'Let me take care of the wrestling, you take care of the athletes and contracts. I don't need to know anything else. I'll be the person who helps these people. I'll make the connections and stop people from taking you for a ride.' There isn't anywhere in the world where I don't know somebody. My ties go back a long way, more than anyone can imagine, with a lot of people. If I don't know somebody, I know somebody who knows somebody. I'm usually on good terms with most everybody. We did this tryout and maybe a couple of them had seen (wrestling). When we were traveling, there were about 20 counties in the world that had wrestling. WWE is in 180 countries, they only know what they see off WWE. Some places we were getting people from, wherever Canyon organized, because I didn't have anything to do with athletes. If it was wrestlers, I was looking at everyone, everywhere. I scouted everybody from everywhere and paid attention to everything. I would just turn up, whatever country, and do this tryout.”
Regal then got into a bit of his past with the former Daniel Bryan, now, of course Bryan Danielson, whom Regal manages alongside Jon Moxley in AEW.
“I used to take all these young people coming along...the only reason people know me now is because of Bryan [Danielson]," admitted Regal. "The best thing was him coming into my life and wanting to pick my brain. It gave me something. All of these young people coming into the job, they all realized, 'this fella will give us the time of day.' When everybody else used to be...I don't play cards or dominos or pack mentality or gossip. I just do me. I'd be out by the ring, doing my squats and pushups when I could. The extras used to come up and I'd help them and talk to them. The best people you could ever have; Fit (Finlay), Marty Jones, Pete Robinson, all these people from Britain. (Mark) Rocco, all these people who were incredible, did for me, once they knew I was sticking around. I would do it (for the young talent). It doesn't matter how you start. All this nonsense, 'they haven't done this, they haven't paid (dues).' No. I was a kid once and I said, 'I want to do this,' and that's how I got in. As long as you don't upset me, I'll give you my time, as much as I can, which turned into a job. They had to try and make up a title for me as a job. I just do me. That's really all I've ever done.”
Regal made his AEW debut at the company's Revolution pay-per-view earlier this month following being released by WWE after a two-decade tenure with the company.
