William Regal recalls putting things into perspective for Mercedes Varnado.
It has been close to six months since Mercedes Varnado (Sasha Banks) and Trinity Fatu (Naomi) were last on WWE programming. The two talents walked out of the company in May due to what Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque described as a communication breakdown.
Varnado’s in-ring name came up during the NXT TakeOver: Fatal 4-Way edition of William Regal’s Gentleman Villain podcast. He recounted having a conversation with her years ago and she wanted his opinion on something. Regal said he put things into perspective for Mercedes and here’s how that conversation unfolded:
I know Sasha won’t mind me saying this but there’s at least once, at least once, she’s come to me and said — whatever’s going on and I haven’t seen her that much in years but this one time years ago and she came up and said, ‘Can I ask you…’ I said, ‘How many times have you been world champion now?’ She went, ‘Hm, three.’ I said, ‘Did you get the check in the bank this Monday?’ She went, ‘Yeah’ and she went, ‘Thanks. That’s all I needed. That’s what I needed to hear.’ Somebody put it into perspective because everybody and everything will take you out of the actual reality of what you want and what you gotta go through because that’s what life is and you need just that one person sometimes to go, hang on a minute, world champion. I said, ‘I haven’t.’ I said, ‘I’ve never been world champion.’ ‘Oh yeah, you’re right.’ ‘Check there?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Is it a good check?’ ‘Yeah. Thank you.’ Thanks Mr. Regal.’ ‘Thank you’. ‘Go on. Keep going’.
Sami Zayn was in the main event of that aforementioned TakeOver. Regal described Zayn as someone who always makes their situation work.
He brought Bryan Danielson and PAC’s names into the conversation and said they’ve all had great careers and made the most of the positions they’ve been in.
He’s ‘make it work’. He’s [Sami Zayn] the perfect example. There is nobody — anybody who sits and moans and groans, just look at what he did from his time that he got there to now and everything that people say, well, oh, WWE wants this or, whatever it may be, Sami Zayn is the perfect example that if you just go out there and give it all you got and make it work, there’s a chance you’ve got of making it and people will say these silly things — well they’re not silly. They are their reality… ‘There was a time when he wasn’t [what he is now].’ He’s been employed by the WWE for a long time and made a lot of money and he was a fella that traveled all over the world and probably never thought he would… I don’t know if he did or not but, it’s proved everybody — it’s a Daniel Bryan thing as well. Oh, he’s this, he’s that and if you wanna believe a certain narrative, that’s fine. I look at it as a pro. He came in and he made it work and they’re still making it work and they’ve made a hell of a career out of it and they’ve got a hell of a career before they ever came to WWE or now in Bryan’s case, being in AEW and anybody who’s on the roster in AEW that’s made it or made it in other places, doesn’t matter where you’ve made it. You gotta look at these people and go, good for them, anybody because if you can last in this job, that’s the real reality of being a pro is to have a career in this job. Strip away all the other stuff, it’s just extra nonsense. If you can make a living out of being a pro, that is the goal that you should be trying to think about and a lot of things go into that but he has done that. So has PAC. They’ve all had incredible careers.
Regal was present on the 9/28 AEW Dynamite and to hear POST Wrestling’s review of that show, head over to the Rewind-A-Dynamite folder here on the site.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Gentleman Villain podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
