AEW's William Regal Reveals His Final Match Was NOT Against Claudio Castagnoli

Regal worked one further match after his NXT Rewind battle with Cesaro.

by Andrew Pollard
William Regal
AEW

For nine years, the common belief was that William Regal's last ever match was against Claudio Castagnoli, aka Cesaro, at NXT Rewind on Christmas Day 2013. Now, his Lordship has revealed that that's not actually the case.

Speaking on the latest episode of his Gentleman Villain podcast (as per Wrestling Inc.), Regal has detailed how he actually later worked a match against Sami Zayn during a WWE tryout in Dubai.

"We were in Dubai and in front of 30 people that were trying out. I did a match with Sami Zayn, but that was with no people. That was just a match in a Crossfit Gym in Dubai. We were doing a tryout with 30 athletes. Sami came with us because he speaks Arabic. A lot of them had never seen professional wrestling."

Regal continued:

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"I said, 'Let me and you, at the end of this three-day tryout, have a match'. Two weeks later, my legs went from under me, which I told on Chris [Jericho's] show, and I would have my first neck surgery. I never wrestled again. The actual last match that was on film was against Cesaro and it couldn't have been against somebody I thought more highly of. I knew my time was coming to an end."

Of course, these days William Regal and Cesaro are once again working together, with the Swiss Superman having recently debuted in AEW under his real name of Claudio Castagnoli and aligned himself with Regal's Blackpool Combat Club.

As for the aforementioned match between the pair - which was actually taped in November '13 - that was a 20-minute war that ultimately concluded with Cesaro putting his beaten-down opponent out of his misery after nailing the Neutraliser for the 1-2-3. If for some reason you've never seen that bout, be sure to go out of your way to check it out.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.