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William Regal On Why Bryan Danielson Is The Wrestler He Wishes He Could Be

William Regal and Bryan Danielson

William Regal has spoken proudly about Bryan Danielson once again while making the claim that Bryan is the wrestler that Regal wishes he could be like.

As a retired wrestler, William Regal can no longer step between the ropes and live his dreams like he did when he wrestled at a high level in WCW and WWE from the 1990s into the 2010s. Over the last decade, Regal has been a mentor and a coach to many current stars in pro wrestling from his time in NXT to his run in AEW earlier this year.

While Regal is expected to begin working for WWE again in 2023 after AEW granted him a release. While in AEW, Regal formed the Blackpool Combat Club with Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta.

When Danielson started as a pro wrestler in the early 2000s, Regal was one of his first mentors that helped guide him and Bryan has talked about how Regal is like a father figure to him.

During an interview with Inside The Ropes earlier this year, William Regal spoke about Bryan’s greatness while saying that he had no bad habits while Regal admitted he wanted to be a cruiserweight wrestler, but he grew too big. When asked why he wanted to be a wrestler like Danielson, Regal said this.

“Because he’s got no bad habits, and there have been times when he’s had problems injury-wise, and he’s been out, but he’s overcome it all. I’ve got to where I’ve got to by, that’s what I was like when I was younger. I was never as good as him when I first met him when he was, in 2000, he was 19 or 20. First night I watched him, I’m like, ‘Wow, he’s in a different league to what I was at this stage of the game. I wanted to be a wrestler as good as him, but I wasn’t built for it.”

“I wanted to be a junior heavyweight like Rollerball Rocco and Fit Finlay, but I grew to 6’3″, and I didn’t have the athletic ability, so I went the traditional British heavyweight route, and that changed over time with different things, but I had to grow into that. Bryan has got no kind of, whatever that I had going on, and things that have set me on the wrong path. It’s 22 years since I did any of that, and it seems to follow me around. It affected my health later on, and different things at that. So there’s no downside to him.”

William Regal continued to talk about Bryan Danielson noting that he got to where he is by being consistently great.

“I set a set of standards out for myself once I was 18, and I was starting to figure this out, and I’ve never broken them. I don’t want to get too deep into that, but it’s why people look at me the way I am now. I’m never gonna say ‘yes’ when the answer’s ‘no’. It’s one of the reasons why I had the job I had before [at WWE], but it’s also maybe one of the reasons I don’t have it now. But I’m quite happy understanding my role in wrestling.”

“Sometimes, you’ve gotta do things to bother people and do whatever to get to a high position. That’s in any form of entertainment or sports. Bryan, since I’ve met him, has stayed polite, kind, helpful, done everything right, and has never broken. He has the same kind of set of standards as me. He’s got to where he got to on his talent and his way of doing it without doing any…”

“I mentioned Chris Jericho before. Chris has wrote in his books how he had to do certain things to get to the position he got to. There’s nothing wrong with that. You have to do that. That’s not me. I’m just quite happy doing, ‘What do you need? Yes, thank you very much.’ Bryan’s never done any of that. He never had to, and got to where he got to. So that’s what I mean when I say he’s the wrestler [I wished I could be] because he’s better than I ever was.”

H/T Fightful