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William Regal wants to remind you the people he replaced were bad at their job

Tuesday’s Rude Awakening looks at a William Regal interview, MYSTERY, and Braun Strowman’s Memorial Day message.

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We publish a whole lot of content here at Cageside Seats. We’re also [looks around and whispers so the bosses can’t hear] not the only place producing wrestling content on the internet. So, as a service to you on the weekdays, we’ll be producing a wrestling newsletter, "Rude Awakening." Well, it will be a newsletter eventually: for now, it’ll just be part of your experience here at Cageside, collecting the news, recaps, and social moments from the greater wrestling universe daily so you won’t fall behind, with a newsletter format to come.

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William Regal is a treasure, and we (and WWE) are lucky to have him in a position where he can influence this and future generations of wrestlers at NXT and the Performance Center. He’s also one of the more open and (sometimes brutally) honest WWE authority figures out there, and that results in interviews like this one with Metro, where he reminds everyone that his predecessors are gone for a reason.

When asked about any NXT performers he was proud of, Regal didn’t just name a name: he also made sure to point out that the people who no longer believed in said name no longer worked for WWE and NXT:

I don’t really like singling anyone out, but Sasha Banks. I’ve known her since she was 18, and the previous people that were doing what I’m doing now wouldn’t even give her the time of day.

When I was asked by Triple H to be part of that team, of which there is nobody still here who was in the team at the time, I kept asking to bring her in, to which people replied ‘oh no, there is nothing in her, she’s useless.’

Sasha was the first person I went to bat for, and her development is a great thing to see.

As if anyone needed another reason to dislike Bill DeMott and that era of NXT history. Regal clearly does have an eye for talent, and it’s how he ended up in this role to begin with. He also mentioned how Banks, along with Bayley and Becky Lynch, helped Regal prove to himself that he belonged in this scouting/development position, as he identified them and helped bring them aboard and, well, look where the three are now.

Keep an eye out for part two of this interview, but part one has plenty to consider, including why WWE doesn’t just sign everyone they’re interested in immediately.

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