Throughout his two decades with the WWE, William Regal proved himself to be a great judge of talent as he helped Triple H forge NXT into a legitimate brand many considered better than Raw and Smackdown.
The Black and Gold had a tough, gritty image during its time at Full Sail university. It was a throwback to quality in ring action and coherent storylines we don’t often see between WWE and AEW.
It was a refuge to now and old school fans as it epitomized what made wrestling great for years, and they churned out top flight talent again and again.
Regal served on air as the brand’s general manager, and behind the scenes he worked to scout and hiring up and coming talent from the Indie scene to develop them into WWE wrestlers.
William Regal told me he was planning to sign Daniel Garcia, Ricky Starks and Wheeler Yuta to NXT before WWE “changed directive”.
— Alex McCarthy (@AlexMcCarthy88) May 26, 2022
Could’ve added AEW talent
Some of the names that were big in NXT were Jon Moxley, Seth Rollins, Adam Cole, Tommasso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, Malakai Black, Keith Lee, and Andrade El Idolo.
Most of them never found main roster success for various reasons, with the main perception among fans being they were misused on the main roster.
Since then, many of those we listed have moved to AEW while Rollins has become one of the company’s best and Ciampa is in the early stages of his main roster run.
But Regal reportedly told talkSPORT’s Alex McCarthy that he wanted to sign a trio of talented wrestlers that have since become solid performers in AEW.
His list included Daniel Garcia, Ricky Starks, and Wheeler Yuta, but he was unable to do so when the company shifted their direction on the brand.
With the revamp and change in focus for NXT to where it’s a legitimate developmental brand instead of being on even footing with the main brand shows came a lot of changes.
Rebranding
Triple H’s vision was dismantled and most of those that worked for or with him were let go, including Regal.
While the releases were deemed budget cuts, most believed there was something more at work, but without any evidence that belief quickly faded like interest in NXT 2.0.
But what makes Regal’s release really interesting is he was onboard with the revamping of NXT. He talked about it on The Sessions with Renée Paquette.
“When I heard last summer that we wanted to revamp, I was like, ‘Great!’ When I actually heard what Mr. McMahon wanted, I was all for that… I don’t know if anybody knew that I was open to the fact that I wanted to be a big part of that because I was.”
That’s an interesting tidbit and we can’t help but wonder if Vince knowing that would’ve changed anything?
But that’s all done with and Regal’s moved on to work in AEW and have his own faction.
Do you think Regal would’ve been released had he made those signings or he was open about how he felt about the new direction? Let us know in the comments below.
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