The Gentleman Villain with Willian Regal

[The Thread Killer]

So the first episode of this show was released yesterday, and I just finished listening to it.  I figured I'd share my initial impressions and see what other PWO Good Brothers thought. We talked about this podcast in the Conrad Thompson thread here in the Podcast folder, but I figured that now the show has officially premiered it probably deserves it's own thread.

Firstly, this was definitely not like the other podcasts on the Ad Free Shows service.  All of those shows follow Conrad Thompson's tried and true blueprint.  Namely, the host  (usually but not always Conrad himself) announces a topic and follows some very specifically researched questions/bullet points regarding that topic.  The format is usually liberally sprinkled with quotes and opinions from Dave Meltzer and the Observer, who along with Wade Keller and the Torch, seem to be the primary research source for these shows. The star of the show then reacts to this research and shares their memories and opinions of the topic being discussed.

The first difference with this show is that Matt Koon is the cohost. Once you hear his voice, you will likely recognize it. Koon has done a lot of voice-over work on the other AFS podcasts, especially in the early days of Something to Wrestle.  Koon had actually stopped working with Conrad and moved on to other endeavours, however this past week he mentioned on Twitter that he came back to specifically be the new cohost of this show. I can't really rate how he did, for reasons we'll get into in a moment.

Secondly...this podcast went off the rails pretty quickly, but not in a bad way. Matt Koon tried to follow the the Conrad Thompson blueprint, but he was unable to do it.  The topic announced was "The Emergence of AEW."  The problem was that William Regal had very little to contribute to the subject, because at the time AEW was forming and taking it's first steps, Regal was seriously ill and almost died.

I know this story about Regal almost dying really flew under the radar.  In fact, I had no idea that Regal had been seriously ill over the past few years.  At this point, I highly recommend that if you didn't know about this story (like I didn't) you search out the two part episode of "Talk is Jericho" featuring William Regal that Jericho hosted with William Regal shortly after his AEW debut.  It's really something.  The entire first part of the episode is just Regal recounting his horrific health challenges that he has faced over the past few years.  It is an extremely compelling, very emotional podcast and I really recommend it. During this debut episode of his own podcast, Regal actually asks his listeners to go and listen to Jericho show if they want to know about his illness, because he doesn't want to go through reliving it all again.  I don't blame him, because during the Jericho show, Regal actually broke down reliving it all...something I am sure he didn't want to do on the very first episode of his own show.

So unfortunately, Regal couldn't really discuss the birth of AEW, because he missed most of it...but that doesn't mean this podcast is not worth listening to.  Far from it.  As a matter of fact, they should really rename this show "The World According to William Regal."  I never would have guessed it...but this man apparently LOVES to talk.  And I don't mean that in an insulting way...but I am telling you, once Koon handed over the show to Regal, Regal pretty much took the ball and ran with it.  I can't honestly tell you how Koon did as a cohost, because he barely got a word in edgewise. Once Regal started talking...about his life, his experience and most importantly his philosophy about working with talent...he was off to the races and there was no reigning him in.

It's funny...I always viewed Regal as somewhat soft-spoken and reticent to talk about himself.  Which in a way, I think he still is.  I was worried that he wasn't going to have much to say or that the host would have to pull answers out of him, and I those fears I had are pretty much dead already.  The YouTube version of the show ran well over two hours...and that was with Regal discussing a situation that for the most part, he wasn't even involved in!  I can't imagine how long he'll go once they talk about something he actually experienced firsthand.

I think the bottom line is this...if (like me) you are a William Regal fan and if you've found him engaging, informative or entertaining when he was a guest on other shows then I think you are probably going to love this show, because as I said...the man is not shy about sharing his philosophy about Pro Wrestling in general and he does not hesitate to go into great detail about how he views the industry and working with talent.  If you are looking for a show where the host just reads off a list of questions and the subject gives answers and dishes backstage dirt...this is probably not going to be the show for you. Regal has already made it abundantly clear since he left WWE that he's not going to bash his former employers and he reiterated that here.  That just doesn't seem to be the kind of guy he is, and I am personally fine with that...I am here for listening to his unique take on Pro Wrestling.

The only other piece of advice I would give regarding this show would be this...I no longer subscribe the Ad Free Shows service and I didn't want to hear interminable ad reads, so I chose to watch the YouTube version of this show.  That was fine...I didn't get the ads, but the editing was exceptionally choppy.  Regal would frequently be cut off mid-sentence because Koon had to cut in with an ad read.  And I get that...it's the nature of the beast.  If you're going to listen to one of these shows, you either have to put up with the ads, you buy the ad free version, or you watch the YouTube version and put up with really third rate edits.  Next time I will probably just listen to the version with ads...but we'll see.

Anyhow, that's my take.  If you like listening to William Regal talk and share his overall philosophy, you'll probably love this show.  Did anybody else listen, and if so...what did you think?

[Matt D]

I'm maybe 2/3rds through and there's a lot of overlap from other interviews he's done in the last few months but I think that was sort of necessary. If he ends up revisiting that stuff over and over again over the next few weeks/months in a JR-ian manner, it'll be a problem, but here it was ok. It's a little weird that Conrad isn't on this one because the new bits were everything he wanted from the initial Arn podcast. A lot of backstage talk on how things were done in NXT. Whereas with Arn, it became quickly apparent just what road agents did and how thankless and ultimately meaningless to Vince and corporate it was.

[El-P]

So they get Regal and the very first theme is something he wasn't a part of. Oh boy.... 

[The Thread Killer]

11 hours ago, El-P said:

So they get Regal and the very first theme is something he wasn't a part of. Oh boy.... 

They erroneously assumed that because he worked backstage in NXT that he would be able to share the details of how NXT reacted to the launch of AEW. That was very poorly planned for two reasons. Firstly, Regal was not around in NXT at that point because he was literally on his deathbed. Secondly, he has made it pretty clear he has no intention of dishing dirt regarding the backstage details of stuff in WWE/NXT.

Regal did a very good job of hiding his illness from the so-called “wrestling media” because as I said, I think the story flew pretty much under the radar at the time. So I don’t necessarily blame them for not knowing that, however to me it seems to be common sense that you would run the topic for the very first show past the host well ahead of time, and find out if he had anything to contribute to the conversation. It almost felt as if Matt Koon was finding out while they were recording that Regal had nothing to contribute to the topic.

As I said though, that does not mean this is not worth a listen, especially if you like to hear William Regal’s take on the industry in general and him explaining his general philosophy. Like I said in my original post, I think it’s hilarious that they managed to do over two hours on a topic that Regal really was not involved with directly.

The topic for next week is the “Real Man’s Man” gimmick.

[El-P]

10 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

The topic for next week is the “Real Man’s Man” gimmick.

*facepalm*

Seriously. Regal. First topic, birth of AEW. Second topic, a ridiculous failed gimmick in WWF. It couldn't be like "Debuting in WCW", of course not, why would it be ? Or "Training at the Snake Pit". Who would think of that ?

[Matt D]

Conrad would. I imagine episode 4 will be "That time Chris Jericho pissed in your tea." I'm sure it's not on Regal. He basically said "The gimmick was just five weeks you know and I barely remember it, but I'm sure you'll jog my memory."

[Al]

Clearly with Regal if you ask him open-ended questions you are going to get a good interview. He won't dish dirt on people generally and he won't get into the trade secrets of wrestling. There's good stuff in his wheelhouse. British wrestling. Early '90s WCW. Bryan Danielson. Lizards apparently. The Man's Man gimmick, when by his own admission he was too messed up to perform, is such a backwards way of approaching it. But it will probably be 75% talking about Regal overcoming his addiction and it will be engaging anyway. The only trick is reigning in Regal, as I don't think he has any appreciation for the nuances of breaks and time cues.

 

The version I listened to via Apple podcasts was interrupted only twice by short Conrad ad-reads, FWIW.

[Dale Wolfe]

The old Austin podcast with Regal is still one of the best wrestling podcasts ever; I've gone back to it several times now. I dont expect anyone in Conrad's wheelhouse to be as charismatic as Austin but its quite clear from that that Regal has hundreds of stories to tell

It will be a shame if this goes badly but got to give it a chance 

[Dale Wolfe]

Thought this was great. A real force of nature, didn't even make the slightest bit of effort to stick to the formula

[Gertner]

I couldn't get through it. Found it pretty dull. I'll give it another shot.

[SomethingSavage]

Haven't even attempted to tackle this one just yet. I don't know. I was fairly satisfied with what we got from the two recent appearances on Jericho's pod, I guess. I did leave with the impression that Regal needs a tour guide to sort of draw him back to the specific topic or question at hand. He's a rambler and an engaging speaker, but yeah. Dude's a faucet and just opens up.

I'll give this one a shot soon. Here's hoping Regal takes plenty of time to tell personal stories and not just reflect on rumors of the time, hearsay, etc.

[Dale Wolfe]

The second one is perhaps slightly more on track but he does love to ramble doesnt he. 

At first i was quite reticient about the idea of the first two being AEW launches & man's man 5 week period, but it has allowed us to get the two big traumatic events of his career out of the way quite early on. Quite cleverly done, in the end. 

The host could do with trying to reign him in occasionally, mind

[Gertner]

His voice sounds like a British Hannibal to me but I found this week's episode better. 

[The Thread Killer]

The first episode was about the NXT reaction to the launch of AEW. The second was the “Real Man’s Man” gimmick. The next is about the first NXT Takeover.

I am starting to worry that Conrad and Company don’t know that Regal wrestled in England or WCW.

[BigBadMick]

Listened to first two episodes today. It feels quite different from most wrestling podcasts. His account of 1998 and complete refusal to accept any kind of praise for overcoming addiction is touching to me, like a resilience a generation older than me would possess. While also acknowledging advantages he had in overcoming addiction that others don’t have. 

[RingoPlaysDrums]

I love Regal and have loved pretty much every extended interview/podcast with him I've heard. I could listen to him talk all day, particularly when he reminisces about British wrestling, which he still seems to have such a passion for. I'll definitely be listening to this. I hope I don't finally get bored of listening to him talk or that my good feelings towards him change in some way. The Jericho podcasts were quite something but at times he was all over the place. That can hopefully be put down to the subject matter. I've been listening to the Jarrett podcast lately and I don't really have time to consistently listen to more than one of these regularly but I expect I'll stick with this one for a while and see how it pans out.

[The Thread Killer]

5 hours ago, RingoPlaysDrums said:

at times he was all over the place. That can hopefully be put down to the subject matter

That’s pretty much my concern too. I am not sure if Matt Koon has the ability (or the inclination) to reign Regal in when he starts to meander. That’s kind of why I now wish that Conrad was hosting the show. He has a ton of experience from dealing with Eric Bischoff in keeping the host on topic, or at least getting them back on topic when they wander off.

[Matt D]

I had a back and forth on DVDVR on the pod as I feel for Koon about more than the meandering.

This is kind of where I ended up (but i insulted Abrahantes along the way if anyone needs me to go back and pull that too):

Quote

Yeah, my issue isn't actually the fact he goes all over the place. It's that he seems to deflate every possible thing that Koon might raise with everyone else. You can't treat Regal like he's Arn Anderson or Mick Foley or anyone else and it makes it interesting and compelling more on how Koon is going to deal with it or if he's going to deal with it. I get now why Conrad isn't doing this, not just due to time. Regal would crush Conrad's questions underfoot with a "Well, actually, that question that might be deep or relevant means nothing to me because I don't believe in the same things that 99% of the human race believe in and value. Instead, let me tell you the time that a lizard ate my toe and I worked six months without telling the office until it grew back due to reenergon I was buying at GNC. It was really my fault, you know."

 

[BigBadMick]

Is he THAT peculiar, though? I get the impression that he's tough on himself, and doesn't accept compliments easy. Like most people of his generation in the UK and Ireland.

[Matt D]

22 minutes ago, BigBadMick said:

Is he THAT peculiar, though? I get the impression that he's tough on himself, and doesn't accept compliments easy. Like most people of his generation in the UK and Ireland.

This is what I led with:

Quote

100% feel for Koon trying to deal with Regal. If he doesn't figure out how to manage it, I'm not sure how many 1:44:00 podcasts I can listen to. There are good bits and Regal, in general, is good to listen to but it feels like he's almost covered 1/5th of his entire career in two weeks. Sort all of the big flashpoint moments. But that's not even the problem; in some ways, that's a positive. The issues are 2-3 fold:

1. Regal's self-deprecating to a fault. It's charming and admirable to start, but you get too deep into it where it becomes the answer to almost anything, or at least huge chunks of his career. It goes way past modesty to being actively detrimental in him explaining himself. He has a tendency to belittle any of his accolades or what makes him special instead of leaning into them at all in a way that might allow him to explain them or give context to them.
2. It goes more than that though. He doesn't like to gossip, which is fine. He doesn't like to talk the tricks of the trade, though he'll mention a few. He doesn't like to look back and have regrets and has a nice quote for that. All of that is sort of ok. The place where it gets worse is that he seems to believe that you can't synthesize experiences and find greater wisdom or meaning in them. For episode too, Koon tried to wrap it all up in the end and it was a hell of an admirable effort from a guy who had completely lost control of his format and could barely ask any questions of Regal or get any specifics. He was able to maybe mention one date/show/specific thing that happened, because Regal was all over the place. But again, it was sort of interesting and fine and what people were there for. But he tried to bring it all home and bring it all together and had something going there (to the point where I'd say not everyone in the world could have managed it) and Regal just teared it all apart in a few dismissive words and I could feel the poor guy deflate.
3. It was the same thing with the AEW podcast when Abrahantes tried to say that he respected Regal or Regal was respected and Regal was very much "Well, you can't respect someone if you don't know them, can you?" With that, it was fine because Abrahantes is a kind of a Secret-spouting QVC-hosting insipid positively engine (too harsh?) but it's really about anything. You have to constantly be on eggshells with Regal because if you try to delve for greater truths or truisms or commonalities or wisdom, or if you say anything passingly pleasant that most people would appreciate or at least understand what you're going for, he's just going to tear it down.

If I'm Koon, who I know nothing about by the way, I'd be excited about the challenge of this and adapting week to week, because I've come to believe that there IS a way to interview Regal successfully and go over these topics and lead him through things, but it's going to take some time to figure out and this whole endeavor might short circuit completely by then. I don't know how I'd do it personally yet, but I do know what I WOULDN'T do. I think a lot of it would be practical, factual questions (Let's go through the chain of events that led to X) and trying to lean more into specific stories about specific people (When you saw X again, do you recall...) and specific matches (So then you wrestled X. What can you remember about that match?). And I'm not at all sure that'd be the way to do it either.

And i ended with the notion that he should be trying to get Regal to talk about anyone and anything BUT himself.

[El-P]

Regal really sounds like my kinda guy.

Still not sure I want to try this pod though thus far.

[The Thread Killer]

I finished the second episode last night. It was pretty good but @Matt D is spot on and pretty much hit the nail on the head in his analysis of the dynamic between Matt Koon and Regal. Regal is very charming and interesting to listen to, but I can see his standard responses getting really old, really quickly without a host that can keep him on topic and hold his feet to the fire a bit more.

[Matt D]

This week must have been a massive relief to Koon.

[Gertner]

Was it better this week

[Gertner]

The Q & A format this past episode made for a much better show