Jim Ross Recalls WWE Star Passing Out During Vince McMahon Meeting

Jim Ross recently told a story about a prominent WWE figure passing out during a meeting with Vince McMahon.

In the late 1990s, Jim Ross was the voice of WWE’s Attitude Era while also working as the President of Talent Relations. That meant that JR was the one that helped build the incredible roster in WWE at the time (WWF in those days) while the WWE Chairman Vince McMahon had to give his approval of who would get hired.

There are some legendary stories about Jim Ross recommending people and Vince McMahon initially turning them down until a persistent JR managed to convince Vince to give them a shot. Mick Foley is an example of that because Vince didn’t want to hire him initially, but did so just to prove JR wrong. Ultimately, of course, JR was right because Mick Foley is one of the greatest WWE superstars of all time.

On a recent episode of Jim’s Grilling JR podcast, he told a story about bringing William Regal to meet with Vince McMahon where Regal passed out. This was around 1998 when Regal was free after a run in WCW and also dealing with an addiction to pain medication. JR spoke about how awkward that meeting was.

“I’ve always been in his corner, sometimes to my own chagrin. When you take a guy that you really believe has something to offer, that I did with Regal, and you take him into Vince McMahon’s office, the three of you are sitting at Vince’s table, and I get a kick in my shin. I just think Vince moved his leg and he’s got big feet and inadvertently hit me, but he was trying to get my attention. ‘Look over.’ I look at Regal and he’s asleep. So, that kind of killed my pitch.”

“Not even my salesmanship could salvage that one. So, he did some things that were self-destructive, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have a good heart, it didn’t mean he didn’t have great knowledge of the business.”

“He’s a really good teacher and has a great eye for talent, but when you fall asleep in your big interview in the boss’ office, you kind of cut your feet out from under you because the old man just looked at it like, ‘He just wasted my time, this guy.'”

For the past decade, William Regal has been retired from wrestling and worked behind the scenes in WWE as well as a run as the General Manager of NXT. Regal spent most of 2022 in AEW before returning to WWE to end the year.

If you use any quotes from this transcription, please credit the original source and link back to this article with a h/t to TJR Wrestling.