William Regal Recalls Being Carried By Bryan Danielson In 2011, Vince McMahon’s Reaction

William Regal has always shared a bond with Bryan Danielson, dating back to Danielson’s early training and acting as a mentor for “The American Dragon.”

In 2011, Regal and Danielson worked a live event loop in WWE that culminated in a match on WWE Superstars in Liverpool, England.

Speaking to Chris Jericho on Talk Is Jericho, Regal reflected on the bout and how Danielson carried him.

“I did a match with Bryan, it was when I wasn’t wrestling. We did a match on Superstars, we wrestled each other for two weeks in Europe, I couldn’t believe I was getting two weeks with Bryan. We tore it up. The night before TV, we were in Birmingham, he gave me a dropkick in the corner and my good knee, I tore the meniscus in it. I knew I was on with him the next day. I was gonna go out and I thought it was it,” he said.

Regal continued by saying, “I tore my meniscus in my right leg, but the next night, I’m on with Bryan and they’re like, ‘You can’t wrestle,’ I said, ‘No, I want to put him over.’ He’s the person who stuck around me and listened to all my nonsense. I’ve sent him to places and put good words in. If there’s one person I want to have my last match with, it’s him. If you watch that match, you’ll see me walk to the ring and they played a rib on me and played my ‘Man’s Man’ music and I’m glad. They had to help me into the building that day, I couldn’t walk. It’s 17 minutes of him carrying me because I can’t walk. He did a masterful job. He did stuff on my leg without bending it. It looked like he bent my leg around the corner post and it never bent. We came out and I was happy, I put him over. I said, ‘Somebody is going to pay attention to this because this lad is something special.’ They already were (paying attention). I thought that was it. I came back and Mr. McMahon was there. I didn’t know he watched Superstars. He was right there, we shook hands, Bryan walked off and he went, ‘Thank you very much, that was a proper wrestling match. That lad is going to make a good villain isn’t he?’ People used to cheer me (in England), so they were booing him and Bryan turned it up. Mr. McMahon said, ‘he’s going to make a good villain.’ I don’t know if Bryan even knows that, but two months later he started turning him villain. I was really happy, ‘I had done that for him.'”

Regal and Danielson are aligned once again in AEW, fighting alongside Jon Moxley.

Danielson & Moxley were victorious in tag team action on Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite. If you missed anything from the show, check out Fightful’s full report by clicking here.

Elsewhere during the interview, Regal opened up about some of his health issues. You can find his full comments by clicking here.

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