William Regal Says WWE Suspension “Was A Good Thing”

AEW star William Regal has opened up about his 2008 suspension from WWE was a good thing as it stopped him from going down a dark path.

William Regal shocked the wrestling world when he debuted with AEW at Revolution on March 6th. While Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson were brawling in the ring after their match, he made his way to the ring unannounced to split the two apart and forced them to shake hands. In the following weeks, the three formed the ‘Blackpool Combat Club’ and are taking the company by the storm.

Back in 2008, William Regal was still wrestling full-time for WWE and had been crowned that year’s King Of The Ring. However, a few weeks later the former Intercontinental Champion was suspended by WWE for 60 days for his second Wellness Policy violation.

Speaking on a recent episode of AEW’s Unrestricted podcast, Regal opened up about that time in his career and says that even though he doesn’t know why he was suspended, 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.”

William Regal went on to say that he was always happy to do whatever WWE asked of him, but in this case he was getting down a very dark path.

“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.”

William regal has also recently spoken on his health issues and revealed that there was a point in 2019 when he was given only 24-hours to live.

H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the above transcription.