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** Aubrey Edwards and Alex Abrahantes hosted the latest installment of AEW Unrestricted with guest William Regal. Regal arrived to AEW at the Revolution pay-per-view and he went over the period of time that it took him to feel comfortable in the new environment. Regal shared that he did feel a bit overwhelmed to start due to the number of people that were approaching him.
I’m 53, but I’m walking into a new company, I just came from another company and I’m just trying to watch everything and see all this young talent and my brain’s going as far as, ‘You don’t have to do that anymore. That’s not your job,’ but still can’t help it. I’ll get — last week — when people get — all wanted to talk to me and, ‘Can you just give me a bit of time?’ Because I’m trying to, you know — not feeling like I fit in at first. It’s a weird thing, right? Because that’s me naturally, I’m just quiet and sort of — if I have to, I’ll insert myself into a situation, I can do it very quickly. It’s just like that but in my real life, I just keep quiet, you know?… That’s how I’ve gotten through life. It’s until I’ve gotten to know people but, I know a lot of people there [AEW] but there’s also a lot going on because everybody’s doing their own thing, so I don’t wanna go — I’m just sort of trying to fit in so, last week was the first week when I started to feel a bit comfortable and certainly not because of everybody has been as welcoming as possible, but I was just a bit overwhelmed and the reason being, although this is where we started, everybody who knows me or will ever spend time with me, when I start off here and you think I’ve gone off the track but we usually end up exactly where I wanted to be.
Regal is the on-screen managerial head of the ‘Blackpool Combat Club’ with Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley. Regal was checked out of wrestling but that changed when he received the call from Danielson.
Very quickly [referring to how quickly his AEW debut came about]. I was checked out. As you get older and you hear all these things when you’re younger, but as time flies when you get on, it may only have been a couple of months but once I was no longer needed in my former line of work, I’ve done nothing but do this for a living since I was 16 full-time, a part from a couple of years off for different things that have gone on health-wise and a few injuries, I’ve done nothing but wrestling. So, I just was — that’s it. I’ve had a great run, I’m gonna maybe take a least a year off except for I was thinking about this time, I’ll start looking for the odd thing in the U.K. just so I could go see my family and go home for a bit and then I get a call [from] Daniel Bryan, Bryan Danielson. I — the reason I say that is because I came up with ‘Daniel Bryan’. Yeah, it was my idea but Bryan Danielson, he had sounded very excited just to go back and be talent basically. Soon as I walked in the door, everybody seems to be asking me to do other things. ‘You can do this.’ Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. I’ve just, you know, a lot of that but the last ten years, I’ve just done nothing but doing everything. It’d be nice to just go out and be me and not have to — I’m gonna do things anyhow, I can’t help it. The reason I ended up with the job I had before is because I’d help Bryan and then all these people is because I’d always be at the ring showing people stuff and I got to know a lot of people over a lot of years because people did that for me in Britain. Once they realized I wasn’t going anywhere, I couldn’t have had any better wrestlers take me under their wing and teach me and show me and put me into places and look after me and I just thought that this is part of my — if I don’t do that, I’m not leaving this job in the right way. Okay, so I was checked out, Bryan called me, that sounds like fun, exciting, I like being around young talent who want to do this and it turned into a job for me with my former employer. Had a great ten years there of being able to do that. A lot of other things but the main thing was being around a group of talent because I would never like it to be a day when there isn’t a wrestling business. Although I’ve worked for other companies, I’ve never just worked for a company, I’ve worked for wrestling because I would help anybody that was interested and I would never force myself, but if you come to me, ‘Maybe try this, maybe try that’ or, ‘I don’t know this, but maybe you could go and ask them because they do more of what you do’ or whatever it is, I would hate there to be a time like when I was younger, there was no way to get into this wrestling business.
** According to PWInsider, Rick Boogs underwent successful surgery to repair his quad tear. Boogs was injured in the opener of WrestleMania Saturday when he and Shinsuke Nakamura challenged The Usos (Jimmy & Jey Uso) for the SmackDown Tag Team Titles.
** Ahead of the NJPW STRONG ‘Mutiny’ taping on 4/10, Big Damo joined Wrestling Observer Live and shared that prior to his WWE main roster call-up in 2018, he pitched for his head to be shaved in NXT. There was an idea floated out there to have Lars Sullivan cut his hair but it did not come to fruition.
For me personally, I wanted to shave my head for a few years. I think actually, I go all the way back to [NXT TakeOver] WarGames and that’s when I first realized, ‘Okay, I’m a little bit thin on top.’ I never really realized it was that bad but okay and then as the lighting gets better, the cameras get better, suddenly a bit more obvious to me and I remember I actually pitched before I went up to SmackDown, I pitched that maybe we could do something where you know, shave my head or whatever and they were like, ‘Ah, maybe we could have Lars Sullivan shave your head bald or whatever.’ It never really came to fruition and fast forward a couple of years when finally it was time, it was probably like two days later and I was like okay, I’m gonna go for it now because it’s the only thing I could focus on. I didn’t really like watching myself wrestle anyway. I always kind of force myself out of habit, but the only thing I could focus on was the dome. It was time to get rid of it [Damo laughed].
** ‘Sportsmanor’ has an interview on their site with Mickie James. She told the publication that she and Nick Aldis have signed on to be a part of a video game that Aldis is doing motion capture work for. James stated that she could not speak too in-depth about the game.
Actually, yes, to answer your question. As far as Impact having its own game, I don’t know about that, but there are certainly some more independent games coming out. In fact, there’s this one game, it’s not out yet, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about it, but Nick and I just signed a new deal for a wrestling video game. And Nick is also doing the motion capture for the game himself; they’ve sent us the whole set-up and it’s in our basement. I think now, because technology has moved so quickly, that there are a lot of different options for wrestlers to be in different types of games. Because I’ve had several video game offers, since leaving WWE like a year ago. I’ve had a couple different video game offers, but we did just sign, I’m trying to think, I don’t know if I’m supposed to say, but yes.
A question was asked about the ‘Divas’ era of WWE and initially, it was not a time that James was too fond of. Her early experiences made her question if she was headed down the right path, but when she noticed the growth in female wrestling fans, she began to get a grasp on what that era was about.
It was a whole new mindset, a whole new era, and something I wasn’t necessarily in love with immediately. They weren’t hiring a lot of wrestlers because they had a different vision for the women’s division at the time. Almost to the point where I was like, ‘Maybe I went about this the wrong way.’ I’m waiting to go up to television and I’m teaching some of these girls how to grab a headlock, and that did make me question what I was doing here in the first place. But then I recognized the fact that we started to get a very strong, young, female audience that we never really had before. I was one of those little girls that was a wrestling fan, and I think that was kind of what that Diva Era was, to try to connect with a younger, female audience, and it worked. It absolutely worked. And some of those girls are my closest friends today, so I wouldn’t change a moment of what transpired during that era.
** WWE announced that Elisebeth Collins has been named General Counsel & Corporate Secretary of the company. Collins is going to be succeeding Samira Shah, who is leaving WWE. Collins will be reporting to Chairman Vince McMahon.
** Monday Night Raw commentator Corey Graves further opened up about being cleared to return to in-ring competition during his chat with TV Insider. Graves dove into the emotions he felt seeing Bryan Danielson, Edge and Christian Cage return from their respective injuries and thinking that if they could come back, why can’t he do it.
It has taken me a long time to get to that point. I remember when Daniel Bryan came back. That hurt. It was like a gut punch to me. Nothing against Bryan. He is just trying to live his life and succeed in his career. To me, it was if he can do it, why can’t I? Then Edge came back. I said, ‘Okay, I know Edge’s injury was way more serious than mine.’ What truly solidified it was when Christian came back in the Royal Rumble because he and I became really close going through the same thing. We had the same doctors in Tampa that shut us both down where we unceremoniously ended our careers. The itch never goes away, especially when you spent as much time as I did to get to the top of the mountain. I’ve gotten to a point now personally and professionally where I’m able to take a step back to wonder if it’s worth it. Then I have to ask if I want to get back into ring shape. Do I want to compete for a roster spot with someone who puts in the work? I don’t want to be that guy. If I can step into the ring like an almost Jerry Lawler role like he used to from time to time. To do that once in a blue moon, that’s still attractive. I like to have that option on the table. At the end of the day, I have to look out for myself and my family and our financial well-being, and our future. I’m not in a real bad spot because hopefully, I can still run my mouth for the next 15 or 20 years.
** Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini welcomed Bianca Belair onto her Token CEO podcast. Belair expressed her desire to launch her own clothing line.
Outside of wrestling — you know, there’s so many goals in wrestling. Outside of wrestling, I would love get into film, I would love to just be — we are so amazing at what we do in WWE and we are so talented and I can’t wait for more of us to start blossoming out and showing different sides of us. I wanna get into film, I wanna act, I wanna write a book, I wanna start my own clothing line because I sow all of my gear that I wear and I’m pushing myself more. The dress I wore to the ESPYs, I made that dress myself, I’m making outfits for my husband [Montez Ford] so I wanna eventually design more things and collaborate with designers and I don’t know, one day go to New York Fashion Week maybe, you know?
She spoke about the amount of support she receives from Montez Ford. Belair mentioned how Ford was front and center for her WrestleMania 37 moment although he did not have a match on the show.
I’m blessed to do what I love with the person that I love. My husband [Montez Ford] always makes jokes, he always says that I’m his sugar momma. But I love it. My husband, he’s one-half of The Street Profits, The Street Profits here in WWE but yeah, we just support each other. He’s my biggest supporter and he loves me for who I am, he supports me. Sometimes, he has a lot going on and I might not have as much going on or say last year, I had a WrestleMania match and he didn’t and you would’ve never known that he didn’t have a WrestleMania match because the amount of support and happiness that he had for me. So, he’s right there with me all the time and — but, it’s cool. We live together, we travel together, we work together, we’re with each other all the time through the highs and the lows. We train together too.
** ‘Atomic’, which is the company that designed the WrestleMania 38 L.E.D neon sign, shared details of their creation with ‘Lancaster Online’ and how the design came to be.
** Deadline is reporting that an action-comedy starring John Cena is in the works for Amazon Studios. It is going to be titled ‘Officer Exchange’.
** AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion Kento Miyahara spoke to Tokyo Sports about his preparation for Champion Carnival and the upcoming joint-show with New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
** 2022 New Japan Cup winner Zack Sabre Jr. was interviewed by NJPW1972.com.
** ‘King’ Xavier Woods appeared on FOX6 Wake Up to promote the post-WrestleMania edition of Friday Night SmackDown.
** Darren Paltrowitz chatted with Rocky Romero.
** NJPW Hyper Battle Results (4/7/22) Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan
– Kosei Fujita & Yuji Nagata def. Satoshi Kojima & Yuto Nakashima
– BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, El Phantasmo, Gedo & Taiji Ishimori) def. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi & Jado
– SHO & Yujiro Takahashi def. El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku
– BUSHI & Shingo Takagi def. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tiger Mask
– Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito) def. House Of Torture (Dick Togo & EVIL)
– United Empire (Aaron Henare, Great-O-Khan, Jeff Cobb & Will Ospreay) def. Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI
– DOUKI, Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr. def. Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano & YOH
** MuscleManMalcolm has an interview with Zicky Dice that was conducted ahead of Dice’s ‘Trouble In Paradise 2’ event.
** April 7th birthdays: Abadon, Sonjay Dutt
If any of the quotes from the following podcasts or video interviews are used, please credit those sources and provide an H/T and link back to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
