William Regal Sees Bryan Danielson As The Perfect Wrestler
William Regal has heaped praise on his Blackpool Combat Club teammate Bryan Danielson, going as far as to call him “the perfect wrestler”.
William Regal shocked the wrestling world when he made his AEW debut at Revolution following the bloody match between Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley. The Gentleman Villain helped break the pair apart before giving both of the shocked stars vicious slaps. He then forced the two to shake hands, marking the formation of the Blackpool Combat Club.
In a new interview with the UK’s Daily Star, William Regal spoke about his relationship with Bryan Danielson, saying he sees him as his fourth son.
“He’s like my fourth son isn’t he really? His whole mission was to be what we set out to be a great wrestler. And he’s done it. When I say he is the perfect wrestler, he is the perfect wrestler and he’s proved it.”
“He was brought into WWE, and forget the NXT thing, he was brought because they knew he was the person who could come in and have 12 and 15-minute wrestling matches and wrestle anybody. They thought that’s all he could do – and that’s an incredible role to be trusted with – but everything else was a plus.”
Regal also discussed a match he had with Danielson on Superstars when the two were still working in WWE. He believes it was this bout that opened Vince McMahon’s eyes to what Danielson could really do.
“We came [back] from that match and Mr. McMahon was right there, and I had no idea he even watched Superstars! He shook our hands and Bryan, who’d carried me through that match walked away. Vince said to me – because for whatever reason people in England liked me – ‘he’s gonna make a great villain this kid.’”
“He already knew how good Bryan was but if you look, it was right after that he started putting him into all that stuff with Kane and all of that. He’s the living proof of a motto I tell a lot of people: make it work for you. No matter what he was given, he made it work.”
The former NXT General Manager also addressed the belief that WWE tried to hold Danielson down, saying that if the company didn’t want Danielson to headline WrestleMania 30 then it would not have happened.
“If you want to buy into that nonsense myth that people like to put out there – because it sounds like a good story – that he was held down in WWE, you are absolutely living in fairyland. If they didn’t want him to main event WrestleMania, he wouldn’t have main evented WrestleMania.”
“The boss knew he had something special on his hands and he didn’t care about the narrative, he was going to see if he got there, and every test he gave him, he got there.”
William Regal will next be seen on AEW TV at Double Or Nothing when he accompanies Danielson, Jon Moxley, Santana, Ortiz, and Eddie Kingston to the ring as they clash with The Jericho Appreciation Society in an Anarchy in the Arena match.