WWE Releases NXT General Manager William Regal

WWE began a new wave of releases on Wednesday, this time centering mostly around the staff of the WWE Performance Center. One of those names, as reported by PWInsider, was NXT general manager William Regal. While the former King of the Ring had been in his current run with WWE since 2000, he had been working as NXT's GM since 2014 and worked behind the scenes as WWE's Director of Talent Development and Head of Global Recuriting. While he had been a pillar of NXT's television product for many years, he had not been featured on TV since the NXT 2.0 reboot back in September. Other names that have been confirmed were Road Dogg, Ace Steel (a PC coach), Dave Kapoor (aka Ranjin Singh), creative producer Ryan Katz and Sarah Cummins, senior vice president of consumer products. 

With the continued evolution of NXT 2.0, we've decided to part ways with some of the staff based in our Performance Center. We thank them for their many contributions throughout the years and wish them the best," WWE said in a statement released to several outlets. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

Regal teased the idea of leaving his role as NXT GM a number of times in 2021 and Triple H spoke incredibly highly of him during a post-show media conference call following NXT TakeOver: In Your House 2021. 

"William Regal has been such an integral part of this since day one," Triple H said at the time. "There are certain people that have and then [there are] people that have come in along the way that have become — it's hard to envision doing it in any sort of way without them. Regal's definitely one of those people. I don't think that we will ever do it without him, he'll be a part of this until the day that he tells me he doesn't want to be a part of it anymore."

"He just loves — it's why Shawn's here, it's why I'm here, it's why Matt blooms here, it's why Sara [Amato's] here. It is why this whole team is here," he continued. "They love the business and they love all the aspects of this business and want to see it continue and move forward. They want to help guide it and change it into the future trying to create the business they always hoped and wished it could be as they were coming up. [They want to] get rid of the things that none of us liked or understood about the business, and enhance the bits and pieces that we did love about it, and [William Regal] is that way to the core. You know, he's constantly pulling talent aside, constantly in their ear. He's one of the biggest recruiting factors we have. He's got a handle on just about everybody that's out there and is one of the best eyes of somebody that's maybe never done this before that steps in the ring and just athletically you can see, 'Okay, yeah, they'll be able to do this and do it really well.' You know, he's, he's incredible at that. So his value here is tough to be measured and he'll always be a part of it, no matter where we go on Tuesday."