Wrestling in Britain in the 1990s could have been much different if William Regal had taken up his friend’s offer to start their own wrestling promotion.
The idea of a wrestler going out on his own to start his own company was not an uncommon one in Britain. Kendo Nagasaki had a stake in All Star Promotions in the 1980s, while Jackie Pallo filmed a TV pilot in 1981 in an attempt to bring more wrestling to TV during the sport’s peak.
However, the business had taken a downturn by 1992. Big Daddy was on his last legs and would retire one year later. Wrestling was taken off ITV in 1988 by Greg Dyke, as the WWE became the defacto biggest promotion in Britain due to their “UK Rampage” pay-per-view events and eventually Sky TV coverage.
Joint Promotions and All Star Wrestling still plodded along despite a lack of TV hampering their popularity. Joint Promotions continued on the back of Big Daddy until his 1993 retirement, bringing in the British Bulldog a year later to take the reigns as their top star.
Meanwhile, All Star Wrestling relied on the star power of Mark Rocco and Kendo Nagasaki to fill their shows, while mixing in youngsters like Robbie Brookside and William Regal. Business wasn’t great, but there was still life in the British wrestling scene, and William Regal could have been the man to bring it back to its former glory.
William Regal Was Offered The Chance To Run His Own Promotion
In an episode of his Gentleman Villain podcast, Regal spoke about how he had the opportunity to start his own wrestling promotion in 1992.
An old friend of his agreed to back him, which he did consider. However, he didn’t know if the money was from legal sources. This gave him some doubts about the project, as well as having a stable job working for both All Star and Joint Promotions during this period. Since the TV deal had dried up, both promotions were much happier to share their workers.
“Yes, that nearly happened [almost started my own wrestling promotion]. I was offered the money. In 1992, my great friend of mine, I will not mention his name on the air and the only reason is… not sure where that money would have come from…” William Regal said.
Regal’s Friend Saw A New Way To Market Wrestling
The unnamed friend had a good eye for business and noticed a gap in the market that was not being exploited. At concerts around the country, merchandise was a key seller. Venues sold t-shirts, hats, food and drink to the punters, making a killing as a result.
Wrestling hadn’t caught on to that, with very few wrestlers if any having merchandise booths to sell their shirts at the shows. Regal’s friend thought that he could capitalise on this opportunity and market wrestling in a way it had never been in the United Kingdom before.
“But he asked me, ‘Darren [William Regal’s real name], can I ask you something?’ He sat and watched and said, ‘That was an incredible show.’ It’s still all, at the time, the best talent in England. I was never a big anything in England, but I left the year after Finlay moved to Germany. There’s a lot of things that went on from [that] opportunity that went completely different. He said, ‘Can I ask you who runs this?’ And I pointed at the fellow who ran it. I don’t want to say his name because I’ll feel bad because he don’t know this and he said, ‘Is he a bit of a divvy?’ “
“Meaning a bit of a not right in the head and I… He said, ‘Well, this show is incredible but there’s nobody even selling popcorn, there’s nobody selling t-shirts’ because he’s got a business brain and he said, ‘You know, you’ve told me that you don’t make that much money unless you go overseas. Why aren’t you making that much money?’ So his business brain’s going and he said, ‘You think you could run this?’ He said, ‘What about all these buildings?’ I said, ‘Well, you could easily get a lot of this.’ “
“This is a weird thing because I’m having to — this story gets back to Brian Dixon… he was all about Brian… He said, ‘I can get you the money, don’t you worry’ because my whole thing, I always wanted a safe — or as safe as it could be — decent place for British wrestlers to work, where promoters didn’t take me for a ride. You got a weekly paycheck of whatever it may be.”
William Regal didn’t end up starting his own promotion in England. Instead, he found himself a job with WCW. The company were interested in signing Giant Haystacks who Regal wrestled regularly on the circuit. They hired both men for a tour of the UK and ended up bringing Regal over the America at the start of 1993.
Had he started his own promotion, who knows how it would have gone? William Regal was not a big name at the time so would not have had the pull or respect he enjoys today. With countless promotions closing their doors and all the top talent heading to the US it seems unlikely he could’ve done much to stop the bleeding in the British scene.
It seems like William Regal made the right call not starting his own promotion, but he came very close to doing so in 1992.
