Speaking to DAZN for a new interview, AEW and ROH wrestler Samoa Joe gave some high praise to William Regal, who he credits as being a major influence on his career.

Additionally, Joe commented on the business needing more guys like Regal, and more.

You can check out some highlights from the interview below:

On William Regal’s impact on his career: “Regal is largely responsible for a great many leaps of my career. He’s always been a guy that’s heavily recommended me to anybody that would listen, consistently been in my corner, always made time which is something that’s so very rare in this industry, would make time. If you sent him a match, he would watch it and he would meticously pick it apart and give you great criticism and send you his feedback within a week or two. It’s something he still does to this day which is amazing to me to the point where he was trying to offload guys and matches to me. He had correspondence with so many indy wrestlers and giving them feedback and seeing potential in people.

“I was one of those people. Bryan Danielson was one of those people. There’s a laundry list of people in the industry who probably would say the same thing. To me, that’s who William Regal is. He loves the art of professional wrestling. He loves this industry with everything he has. He desperately wants to go out there and try to make anybody better who will take the time to sit under the tree and listen. He definitely made me better. He’s largely responsible for a lot of my approach to the ring, my acumen and what I do, my attitude and how I handle things. He was definitely a mass influence to me.”

On the business needing more guys like Regal: “They could use a million more. The world could that cared about any industry as much as he cares about wrestling. I think it’s fortunate that there’s guys like Regal that are still around. Guys like Fit (Finley) that very much care about this industry (and) the art form of it and want to preserve it and pass on the knowledge which I think is the biggest thing. They just want to really pass on the knowledge and help the knowledge base grow and keep this going far beyond them. If you ask them, they’ll tell you that this industry has rewarded their lives and they risked their lives greatly. And they just want to give back to it and they do every chance they get.”