Straight out of Blackpool, it’s William Regal! After several years of wrestling around the world, he received tryouts on the UK tours of WWE and WCW in 1991. In January 1993, he joined WCW full-time and would remain there until 1998.
Following a stint in WWE, he rejoined WCW which was now in its death throes. The previous two stints are actually better remembered as a weird, two-year fever dream. Here you had this dope triple threat of a wrestler whose most memorable thing from this two-year period was playing “a real man’s man”.
He got activated again once he returned to WWE and it was similar to his first WCW run. It’s been a very good career with WWE—with a few hiccups along the way professionally and personally—but he’s an important part of WWE and its NXT brand now. A career well done, really.
In this 3-Count Spotlight, we look at the tools of a wrestler—mic skill, ring ability, their look—and see if they had or have the tool to go beyond “superstar.” Let’s get into William Regal!
Mic Check Passed
During the first half of the 90s, Regal showed that he had the skills to pay the bills on the mic. In WCW, he was busy slapping opponents as a snobbish upper-class blue blood. He trashed everyone on the mic without a ton of shouting—and I love shouting on the mic—and did so in a way that hit harder than over-the-top threats.
I’m focusing on his mic skill as a wrestler as his mic ability outside of the ring as an authority figure has always been good.
He’s Got the Walk, He’s Got the Look
If you saw Regal in WCW, he had a good snobbish heel look to him. It was basically what Triple H would do upon arriving in WWE in 1995. Peak Regal for me was during the late 2000s—especially around the time of his 2008 King of the Ring victory. Gear can make a wrestler’s look come together and black and gold was his color all along.
Something else that gets overlooked when discussing William Regal is that he was a heavyweight-heavyweight. The guy is 6’3 and depending on the promotion and decade, he weighed between 230lbs and maybe 260lbs. His WCW run shows him as a particularly solid, sturdy heavyweight similar in size to Meng or Goldberg.
The Ringcraft of William Regal
This was his strongest attribute. I grew up a fan of Bret Hart but Regal’s technical wrestling was next level. A lot of it was counters to holds, counters to counters, and snug submissions but it all looked rough even with smooth transitions.
On top of that, it didn’t look elementary. I’ve rewound tapes multiple times in a match just to see how Regal pulled off his moves.
It wasn’t all graps and mat stuff, William Regal could also throw fists and feet. Now, this was the stuff that looked basic as hell but brawling never needed to be flashy or clean.
It’s actually better for brawling to look wild and stiff. Regal’s brawling was stiff and measured. While he was busy bruising an opponent, he was targeting spots the whole while. His in-ring work is definitely worth watching.
Potential: Pretty High
In his prime, Regal was more in the middle of the card and rarely moved into the upper reaches of the card during his career in the U.S. That is unless you count his time in WWE’s old Memphis developmental territory.
Actually, his championships and other achievements are all pretty minimal for a 30-year career. You could contest that almost twenty of those years were spent in either WWE or WCW but even then, it would smack of being underutilized to a degree.
I feel that Regal could’ve been a major heel in WWE and even WWE Champion over on SmackDown when the title was exclusive to the brand. His King of the Ring victory—while late in his career—should’ve been the starting point for a strong late-career push.
William Regal—and several others in WWE and WCW—also dealt with either being foils in major feuds or just being involved in middling feuds. That isn’t to say that his supporting role and middling feuds weren’t enjoyable but they weren’t going to smack of “This guy could be big” to fans.
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