Current AEW star William Regal has commented on his 2008 suspension from WWE and says ultimately it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
William Regal made waves when he made his AEW debut at the Revolution pay-per-view, leaving his mark on the faces of both Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley. Since then the trio has formed the Blackpool Combat Club and is taking the company by the storm.
Back in 2008, William Regal was in a very different phase of his career. Still competing full-time for WWE, the Englishman came out the victor in that year’s King Of The Ring tournament. Just a few short weeks later however Regal was suspended by WWE for sixty days after violating the company’s Wellness Policy for the second time.
Speaking on AEW’s Unrestricted podcast, William Regal discussed that time in his career and says he doesn’t know why he was suspended but in hindsight it’s a good thing for him that he was:
“The King of the Ring thing, I had an idea of completely changing up something about myself. Once I got to WWE I was either doing serious stuff, or I was always on live events, but I was on TV sometimes. If I was, it was either a little bit of serious stuff or some incredibly entertaining things, which I thrive on. This was a very serious role.”
“No need to get into why I got suspended, I still don’t really know. I’ve no reason to lie about that. If it had gone a different day and age and wasn’t what had happened near to that time, it wouldn’t have even come up. But when I was out of it, within a week of being home I thought, ‘I am glad I got out of that.’ Because I was going down a dark path with that. Because I was studying a lot of the world’s dictators. I was trying to get into a real different mindset, and it drags you down.”
“Whatever I was given I was just going with it. I came up with the look and everything. But I was always very happy to just do what I was asked to do. I was never one for going to try to get stuff, ‘what do you need?’ ‘Yep, It’s done.’ And they trusted me, and I had great trust with WWE to just do that. But once I went down that path, because I had done so much comedy and whatever else.”
“I was getting down a very dark path, so that’s a very memorable one. Because I did get suspended, but I also think it was a good thing. Because I didn’t want to go back to a dark place that I was going through. I had some health issues anyway at the time. But I didn’t want to go to a place that I’d been to in the 90s, that would have probably lost me my family. I really got into that.”