William Regal on the WWE Tryout Process

He’s a real man who helps with tryouts. William Regal has worn a lot of hats in wrestling over the years, ranging from performer to manager to General Manager to being a major scout for WWE. You often hear about WWE tryout camps being used to find new talent and Regal has explained the process behind them.

Regal recently spoke with “Metro” to discuss a variety of topics, primarily relating to NXT and the WWE developmental system. He explained the idea behind the series of tryout camps, as well as talking about some of his proudest moments as one of the more important people in NXT. Here are some highlights.

On How the Tryouts Work Around the World

“Everything is completely up in the air and adaptable. If I come to the UK you’re going to look at as many wrestlers as you can, but also those you know will fit the bill. There are certain people you can look into before they even get there and know they’re just not going to be able to work for WWE for whatever reason.

You look for wrestlers, that’s the number one goal, but we’ve only got so many spaces. There are no guaranteed jobs here. I’d rather you do a tryout, make sure you do everything great, and then there may possibly be a job at the end of it somewhere. There are a lot of younger people I look at where there probably isn’t a chance of them coming in for several years. But once you’ve done a tryout, that’s it, and I know I get to meet them and spend several days with them to find out if they’re the kind of people WWE want.”

On What Fans Get Wrong About Tryouts

“There are only so many wrestlers that can actually look and act the part, and do whatever they have to do in WWE, and that’s a lesson to be learnt for a lot of wrestlers, you need to look the part. If you don’t, there is very little chance of you making it here. It doesn’t matter how big you are, if you think you can act like an idiot and just not go to the gym or do anything, it’s probably not going to work out for you. People will say certain guys never did this or that, but Kevin Owens did a tryout, Sami Zayn did a tryout. If you go to Japan, you have to do a tryout. There is always some form of something you have to do to get into a company. There is nobody above doing it.”

Any on Why Doesn’t NXT Sign More Talents

“A lot of people ask ‘why haven’t you got this person yet?’ Because if I brought him to everyone’s attention now, as long as he’s making a living and doing the right things and I’m keeping in touch with him, if you bring him in now, we’ve only got so much space and so many spots for people, he’d be better off staying where he is and getting more experience.

“You can only take so many, and there a lot who already have contracts to other places that you can’t have anything to do with. They’re all smart enough to get hold of someone when the time is right if they’re interested. Life is just experience, whether it’s good or bad, whatever you’re doing you should learn from it if you’ve got the right kind of mindset.”

You can read the full interview here.

Opinion: Regal is one of those people who doesn’t get the credit that he deserves. He seems to have been around forever and isn’t even fifty years old yet. It would surprise me if he doesn’t become head of talent relations one day as he certainly has all of the credentials and seems to be doing quite well with NXT.