Professional wrestling legend and future WWE Hall of Famer William Regal who is also a former four times WWE European champion recently talked about the newly opened NXT Europe and revealed that it was in process for a number of years.
The NXT had been the development territory of WWE for over a decade and it has produced some of the biggest names of wrestling today including the likes of Seth Rollins and Big E. Slowly WWE expanded its territory as they launched the NXT UK which was an UK based development territory of WWE.
William Regal Reveals NXT Europe Was Being Planned For Years
The NXT UK has also produced some of the biggest names like Gunther and Rhea Ripley. But recently WWE decided to expand their development work even more as they came up with the new idea of NXT Europe which will cover the whole region of Europe as their development territory.
With the introduction of the NXT Europe, WWE decided to close the NXT UK which was in existence for nearly 6 years. In their recent pay per view event, NXT Worlds Collide, they unified all the NXT and NXT UK Championships. Fans are really excited with the introduction of the NXT Europe which we believe is going to be a big success.
William Regal who is also a former four times WWE European champion recently spoke on his Gentleman Villain podcastwhere he talked about the newly opened NXT Europe and revealed that it was in process for a number of years. He said;
“I know that it’s been over 10 years that NXT UK was in the thought process. I suppose I can say this. I also know for the last several years the NXT Europe was in process. I’m gonna leave it there. But things changed in the last year and different things. But now, things are changing again, and things are back on track. So I’m not going to say any more about that.
“But for any of these people who seem to think that they know what is going on, they don’t know. But I know and they don’t. They know what they’re getting told. And I know different, and I don’t know anything anymore because I don’t work there and I don’t ask. But I know that the expansion of NXT was going to happen. We’ve been working, I was personally working on that for the last seven or eight years until January. I know what I know and I’m not going to say what I know.”
William Regal continues, “Whatever happened and whatever nonsense you think about whatever NXT UK was, NXT was a good, safe place for people to work. They got paid a weekly wage check which they never normally got. They didn’t get taken advantage of by promoters promising or holding certain things over them that promoters do. There’s people that will say, ‘Well, you killed British wrestling.’
“Mate. I’m telling you, I went over there in 2016 for two weeks to check out the British wrestling scene and I found that it wasn’t what it was supposed to be. ICW was running a few shows a month. Progress was running one or two shows a month. Rev Pro was running one and sometimes two shows a month. I ended up going to All Star promotion shows just because I felt bad about not having enough shows to go to.”
William Regal Continues, “It was a myth that there was all this incredible stuff going on, when really there were companies running a couple of shows a month. But because they were on the internet, blowing their own horn and getting themselves put over in whatever form they could get put over, that there was a booming wrestling scene.
“Whereas when I actually met Pete Dunn and talked to him, he was working at a little working men’s club in England because he was one of them that went out and got work off a small promotion. The truth of it is Brian Dixon of All Star promotions, which is the person I used to work for, was running more shows than anybody, and because he doesn’t go on the internet and doesn’t care about any of that, he was still the most successful, and was the most successful promoter in British history.”
“It was cobbled together and everybody was blowing their own horn about what they were doing. I know all the people from Progress and ICW, but okay, you’re selling out one show in Camden, 700 people or 800 people once a month. When I used to work there, working in the winter, I was working 20 shows a month.” Said William Regal.
“So all these people that buy into all this nonsense are buying into nonsense. There was PCW doing a couple of shows a month. There were companies doing shows a few shows a month and it was looking like there was a lot going on, and there was a lot going on for the wrestlers who were booked on all these shows. But for the majority of normal wrestlers it wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription