William Regal opens up about WWE gimmick that almost cost him his family

William Regal's run as King of The Ring in WWE was a lot darker than many people realize.

Back in 2008, Regal defeated CM Punk in the final of The King of the Ring tournament on Monday Night RAW. This was the beginning of a big push for the British star but he was suspended less than a month later due to a wellness violation and had to be written off television.

Regal reflected upon this time in his career on the latest episode of the Gentlemen Villain podcast. The former King of the Ring spoke about how dark he planned to take the character, causing him to bring his work home with him and not pay enough attention to his family.

"I was taking this to a completely different realm of where I wanted to go with being a dark character," William Regal said. "And I really hadn’t figured out how far yet, and then this thing came along [with] the King of the Ring, but I was acting this sort of very deep, dark character. And at the time, I was studying a lot of the world’s dictators and I was bringing that, the last few weeks and I was doing that stuff, the King of the Ring stuff, I was sitting at home and I’m not, again, paying attention to my family as much. Because I’m thinking too much of this job."

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William Regal says he was glad to leave the dark WWE gimmick behind him for his family

The suspension from WWE allowed Regal to leave the dark character behind. It was probably a good thing for him in hindsight, as he believes it could have turned into something he lost his family over.

"But once I was out of it, I thought I’m glad I’m out because [if] I didn’t, until I’m out of it, when I was a week later in Orlando just on holiday thinking I’ve got seven weeks off, the initial few days was not happy because I’m taken out of this biggest role I’ve ever been given," William Regal said. "But then realising that could have been the thing that could have lost me my family because I could have…okay, I’ve heard people say I could have been World Champion. I’ve heard people say that they were going to go, nobody told me anything. I was just going week by week and doing it, but I was creating this dark character." [H/T: Inside the Ropes]

William Regal currently leads The Blackpool Combat Club in All Elite Wrestling with Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson, and Wheeler Yuta. You can check out the group weekly on AEW Dynamite and Rampage.