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William Regal is respected as one of the best minds in professional wrestling. Yet he still feels like his AEW run didn’t go the way he wanted it to.
William Regal’s run with All Elite Wrestling wasn’t particularly long, but the veteran still feels like things didn’t play out the way he wanted them to. He debuted at last year’s Revolution pay-per-view following a match between Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson. William Regal forced those two to shake hands, eventually leading to the Blackpool Combat Club stable, which is still going strong despite the manager’s departure from AEW. He also took the center stage late last year during the build to MJF against Jon Moxley at Full Gear. Regal would turn on Moxley during that match, helping the Salt of the Earth win his first AEW World Championship.
That’s heavy involvement for Regal, and he recently appeared on The Distraction Pieces podcast to discuss his on-screen involvement in AEW. “In the last months of AEW, it was getting far too much about me. It should have been about the talent I was with, not about me. I’m quite happy being in the background. All it is is grief. I’ve had my run. I couldn’t have had a better last few months as far as TV and doing that, but I didn’t go there with that intention.” William Regal explains that AEW brought him in to do something outside of being an on-screen talent. “The intention was to do something different… I went there with a different plan because I was asked to go there to help out in a different capacity, and that never transpired. Okay, I’m done.” (h/t to Fightful.com for the transcription)
What Were The Initial Plans In AEW For William Regal?
It’s interesting to hear William Regal admit that AEW didn’t sign him to be an on-screen talent initially. He says he was asked to help in a different capacity, but what could that have entailed? One possibility is that Tony Khan wanted to bring him in as a coach of some sort, given his tremendous amount of wrestling knowledge and know-how. The current coaching staff includes veterans like Billy Gunn and Jerry Lynn, but Regal brings a wealth of experience to the table. It’s been repeated by multiple sources that a majority of AEW’s top wrestlers don’t like to take advice, but perhaps that was the intended role for Regal.
Another possible idea—and this is speculation—is that Tony Khan was looking at William Regal to help book Ring of Honor once a television or streaming deal was secured for that brand. However, that agreement never fell into place, meaning that there was no weekly ROH TV to book. If William Regal had been brought in to help with ROH booking, and there were no shows to book, that’d explain how he ended up strictly as talent.
Regal returned to WWE after asking for his AEW release. One aspect of that release relegates Regal to behind-the-scenes action, and he cannot appear on Raw or SmackDown. By the sound of it, the 54-year-old is perfectly fine with that. He returned to the company presumably to work with Triple H closely. Still, WWE has undergone significant changes over the last few weeks as Vince McMahon powered his way back onto the Board of Directors. Triple H is still in charge of creative, and as far as the public knows, Regal remains Vice President of Global Talent Development.
Sources: The Distraction Pieces, Fightful.com
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