A prominent member of the WWE roster has explained why they owe a lot to William Regal for their success in the company and how their time in the company could have been cut drastically short.
When Triple H made the transition to a backstage role and focused on NXT, a number of notable names from around the world were signed to WWE deals such as Gunther, Shinsuke Nakamura and Finn Balor. With the interjection of many international styles, NXT became a more exciting product than the main roster and aspiring wrestlers in international promotions saw a new opportunity present itself. Although Triple H was the Head of NXT at this point, Regal was the one who scouted the international stars and put them on the WWE radar.
Signed to WWE in 2017, Ludwig Kaiser was competing at wXw when he was spotted by Regal, who was also familiar with the work of Kaiser’s father, the legendary European wrestler Axel Dieter.
While speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Kaiser recalled how he was signed to WWE, noting that the company was looking for a German wrestler and went on a tour of the country to scout the talent. When Regal spotted Kaiser’s name, he was scouted immediately:
“The story that I’ve heard is that WWE was looking for a German wrestler, and they scheduled a tour through Germany to look at talent, go through all the different wrestling schools and stuff. And apparently Mr. William Regal, who I’m always going to be grateful for, saw my name on the list, he knew my dad, and they saw my picture. They saw everything, he pointed out me and said cancel the tour, we’ll take him.”
Continuing, Kaiser recalled not having to participate in a try-out as he was injured shortly before, at which point he thought that this would be the end of his WWE journey:
“I was one of the guys. I never had to do a try-out, because I was supposed to do one, but two weeks, three weeks before I blew my knee out. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say that. I’m not sure if I ever said that. But yeah, I got injured and I had to cancel the try-out.
So obviously I’m in the match already, I thought Oh my God, this is over. Because when I first started this, I never thought I would go to WWE. It was not my big goal to be like okay, I gotta go to WWE or otherwise this is all for nothing. No, I wanted to do my dad proud. I wanted to be a professional wrestler. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to do all of that.”
Ludwig Kaiser Credits William Regal And Others For Opening The Door To International Stars
Later in the interview, Kaiser was asked if he thought getting to WWE was not possible at that point, which the Raw star agreed due to the barriers in place early in his career. However, these barriers were broken down thanks to the likes of Regal, Fit Finlay and others:
“I think so, yeah. Because back in the day when I first grew up in wrestling it was very, very tough. Honestly, before Hunter had that vision and opened up that door for us, none of us, not Gunther, not myself, not Pete Dunne, all those guys, Finn Balor, I don’t think we would be here today. So without Hunter, without men like William Regal, men like Dave Taylor, Robbie Brookside, Fit Finlay, all those guys who paved that way for us European talent. I’ll always be grateful for that, definitely. Because without them, I don’t think we would be here.”
Also in the interview, Ludwig Kaiser spoke about possibly teaming with Tiffany Stratton in WWE.
In other news, a former WWE star was forced to redo one of their matches as it looked too good.
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