William Regal has revealed how he became a professional wrestler.
The Englishman is considered an all-time great in the industry. He is one of the few wrestlers to cross a generational gap, wrestling on the old World of Sport on ITV and on the worldwide WWE, well into the 2010s.
His career lasted until his final match in 2013, ending a legendary run in the industry. It was a career that started when he was just 15, and dreamt of running away to join the circus.
William Regal spoke about becoming a wrestler in a 1999 shoot interview, following the WWE firing him in April that year. The Englishman revealed that his grandfather was a wrestler, and he took after him in the ring.
Regal noted that he started as a plant in the audience at Blackpool Pier. He would shoot-fight the wrestlers, in order to entice punters to put their money up for the match. He got battered, but eventually earned their trust and got trained by the group.
“My grandfather was a professional wrestler. Bill Matthews used to wrestle as ‘The Iron Duke.'” William Regal said. “He started in 1919 and finished in 1932. He got plenty of pneumonia from wrestling more, and I grew up pretty much within 100 yards of his house, where my father was born and where I was born. My father built the house, just a hundred yards apart if that. So, I spent most of my time with my grandfather growing up, and he filled my head full of nonsense about wanting to be a wrestler.”
“When I was 15, I went to an amusement park in Blackpool, England—Blackpool Pleasure Beach. There was a wrestling room there, and I went up to the promoter and told him I wanted to be a professional wrestler. He said, ‘Go and challenge this guy.’ They were real fights, though, not like what you see on TV now. For your first bout, it was a shoot fight.”
“It was set up so that if anybody wanted to fight, they could challenge. As long as they hadn’t been drinking, they could come in. But nine times out of ten, it was plants in the audience. That’s how we got people to come in. It wasn’t just to watch wrestling; it was to watch what they thought was one of them.”
“Most times, nobody in their right mind was going to come up and fight a wrestler. So, we had to put our guys in, but if anybody wanted to go, they got the opportunity. That’s what the promoter sent me to do. So, I went out at 15, a little, strong kid, and did it. I got slapped around a bit—more humiliation than anything.”
William Regal’s First Match Was As A 16-Year-Old In Blackpool
William Regal continued. He revealed his first wrestling match was against Colonel Sean Brodie, who slapped him about to try and dissuade him from becoming a wrestler.
He then spoke about becoming a full-time wrestler after he left school at 16. Regal worked in Blackpool during the summer, and toured the holiday camps, like Butlins, during the remainder of the year.
“It was against, yes, a wrestler who used to wrestle in England and Germany for many years, Colonel Brodie, or Sean Brodie. He slapped me about. Yeah, you know what you’re gonna do to a 15-year-old kid when you’re the big guy—you can make them… He just tried to put me off going back, but I just kept going back and going back. Eventually, after a while, the promoter said, ‘You really want to do this?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I want to do it.’ Then they took me on.”
“I used to get there early in the morning, put the ring up, hang around, and go out in the car to do whatever they needed doing. In between shows, someone would get in the ring with me and teach me a little bit of something. In England, you do school from age 4 until 16, finishing high school at 16. I left school when I was 16. While most of my friends went into apprenticeships, becoming engineers or whatever, I wanted to be a wrestler.”
“I did that during the actual season, which is from Easter until November. I left school on May 18, 1984, but I was doing it on weekends the year before. Officially, I left school and went full-time until the first week in November. After that, it was just regular house shows throughout England during the winter. I didn’t get too many shows that first winter.”
“When Easter came, I went full-time. We did 21 shows a week. It was the most fun; it was just a big adventure to me. I didn’t think about anything; I was just happy to be there. When you’re 16, living away from home, with your own apartment and money coming in—not a lot of money, but enough for me to think I was loaded. I used to get, I think when I was 16, five pounds a show, which is like seven dollars and fifty cents a show.””
