William Regal says trying to be the best wrestler in the world is "a completely worthless exercise" because it's subjective.
Regal had a lengthy in-ring career, and he was featured in WWE and WCW for several years. He then took an influential backstage role with WWE and helped build NXT into what it became. WWE released Regal this past January, and he signed with AEW in March. He has been a prominent part of AEW TV ever since.
In an interview with Alistair McGeorge of Metro, Regal cautioned other wrestlers against obsessing over the quest to be the best wrestler in the world. He noted that he has seen others go to the grave because they put too much pressure on themselves in this regard.
"It’s not a knock on anybody trying to be the best wrestler in the world, I just don’t want them to eat their lives up, fixate on it. I’ve seen it put some of my friends in the grave. That’s not an exaggeration. Some of my friends have gone to the grave because they have been trying to live up to too much, because they put so much pressure on themselves to be somebody you can never be. There’s always gonna be at least one person will disagree – even if they don’t disagree – just to disagree. If you listen to too much of it, it’s gonna send you off the deep end," Regal said.
The veteran went to share his belief that there's no thing as the best wrestler in the world because the idea is subjective, and there will always be critics who disagree.
"I’m gonna offend people if I say this because there’s no such thing – there never was, there never will be – as a best wrestler in the world, because it is subjective. If one person thinks you are not – I know there’s a lot of young lads at the moment wanna claim that and think that. I hope they’re not driving themselves mad with it. I have seen some of my friends drive themselves to the edge of not good things trying to be the best wrestler in the world, and unfortunately there’s always somebody who’s gonna critique you," he said.
Regal stated that, in his own career, he never chased the idea of being the best wrestler in the world and he emphasized that doing so is "a completely worthless exercise." He expressed his belief that, rather trying to acquire this label, wrestlers should focus on aiming to being the best they can be.
"Just be as good as you can be, because somebody is always gonna say you’re not what you are. It might offend you, and that headspace, it’ll take up time as you’re trying to get mad at them or worry about some non-entity saying that you aren’t the best. You could be working on actually getting better at being a wrestler," Regal said.
In a previous interview, Regal looked back on the formation of NXT UK. More information is available here.
Like Regal, Bryan Danielson recently stated that being the best is subjective. Check out his comments here.
Catch up on our coverage of this week's episode of AEW Dynamite here.
