A Deep Dive on Lord William Regal

while you're listening to this, shout out to YouTube. And if you're just tuning in for the first time, you can catch all our previous episodes at the same spot you're listening to this one right now. And uh, come with us on the journey. Welcome to the Federation, and welcome Wrestling with Freddy. Now stuffing up to the mic, the host of Wrestling with Freddy, Freddie Prince tune. All right, you guys, we're gonna do another deep dive. I really

enjoyed the Dolf Ziggler deep dive. I like going in and re examining the careers of people I was lucky enough to work with while I was there and see them grow despite speed bumps, or see them grow even with the greatest push of all time. It's just it's fun to dive into that. So we're doing it again, only this time we're doing it with an old school legend Ziggler and old school he just old. Oh. Anyway, today's episode, I'm gonna deep dive on someone who affected

me deeply while I worked there. And if you're familiar with this show, we've talked about him a little bit in some of the acting classes. Today's episode is all about Mr William Regal. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going British today. We're going to be very proper. There will be no cursing on this episode, although the Brits can curse. Boy, But this was a guy I learned a lot more from than he realized when I was there. I think he's heard since then because I've I've told

enough people. But I love this guy and I want to share a couple Well, first I want to share the reasons why, and then as a kid, and then why I learned to respect him as a rational. Oh but we're side questing right away before we get into any of this, so check this out. You guys know that I love wrestling very much and I'm and I'm not sensitive about it, but I'm very protective about it. When I first took the job at w w E, I said, look, I'm not trying to to change the business.

I'm not trying to do anything like that. This was the second time I went there. I said, let me just help build a wall and and help protect it. So I get very protective of wrestling sometimes, and when I see people aren't taking it seriously, it's bothersome to me. I've been asked on social media, Hey, would you go back and write for w w E, And the answer is always no. But the reasoning and this is the

most honest I I can possibly be. It's a job that requires one hundred percent and if you're not well, and this is my opinion, this is what worked for me when I was able to give ad and not focus on family or friends or anything else. I was really really good when I When I wasn't able to do that, it just wasn't where it deserved to be. There are other people. They're depending on your ideas and your words sometimes if they're not able to come up

with their own. And if you're half assent, how we already cursed you, shouldn't you shouldn't be working with them. So it's I those are the things I get protective about. And so I got this weird email from the friendly people at Twitch. And for those who don't know what twitches, it's a streaming service that started with I think it was called justin TV, and it was kids playing video games and you could watch them while they were playing a game. And people like to watch for various reasons.

Maybe the person is just sick at the game and getting headshots on everybody and never dined. They're getting like forty kills and two deaths or sometimes even no deaths, and if you're a kid or grown up that's into video games, that might be exciting for you to watch. Sometimes they were just great storytellers or trash talkers. They would they're they're The way they would express themselves when they would die or get kills really got them a

lot of popularity. Sometimes people just thought they look cool or thought they were hot, and we're like, yeo, I'm just gonna follow this first. I don't like video games, but they're talking to me, so that's cool. I get to interact, and that was a big thing. There was an interaction there between the audience. You could read their chat, and when it first came out, it blew people away.

So I attempted to work with which a long long time ago, and we started a game channel there where I would play video games and talk to to fans and and uh and tell stories kind of like what we're doing now. And it transitioned into what really my love was, which was tabletop stuff. And I pitched him a bunch of like tabletop stuff, video game stuff, all kinds of things, and one of them was a wrestling podcast, so to speak, a wrestling show. I think I called it.

I don't. I don't even think I knew what a podcast was then. So I hit them with all these ideas. They rejected everything categorically and then let me know that I was not the talent that they were looking to work with at Twitch. I guess I was too old, right, I guess, or I don't know what it was. They didn't give me a reason, but they let me know that that, uh, I wouldn't be receiving the support that

that I was looking for. So I was like, all right, I'm not the kind of guy who's gonna ask the same girl out twice if she said no, So I left started my own thing. Did my own thing well. Twitch emailed me and get this, not only did did they ask if I would be interested in doing a podcast for them, as they called it, which clearly they didn't know I was already doing one. But the offer was hysterical. They're they're so not committed to the wrestling business.

They said, we would love to offer you affod to eight or eight to ten weeks trial run of a wrestling podcast, payment based off your numbers. Right, And I'm sitting there reading this, I'm like, this is like a record deal in two thousand five, where record companies forgot how to build stars and or didn't have employees that could build them anymore. So you had to have your own following on social media and that was the only way you could get signed, whether you were good or not.

So I emailed this this nice guy back and he for sure did not work there when I was there, and I started the message with that. I said, hey, man, um, I'm definitely not the right guy for this. I said, I already have a podcast and we're doing quite well. Thank you very much to all of you who are who listen and give us that love. That also made it feel extra special, and that's because of you guys, not me. Um, But I wrote, I said, I'm definitely

not the right guy for this. You know I tried this once before with with you guys, and uh, I didn't have much success. And to put in the offer you're only gonna give it eight to ten weeks, let's me know that you guys aren't committed, and for you not to be fully committed and me to be as committed as I if you guys suddenly don't like the show because of expectations that you didn't inform me of weren't met, or because you're simply not as big a fan,

which you clearly aren't. If it's eight to ten weeks of wrestling as I am, then all of a sudden, the show has gone. I can't take it with me, and then you damage me in my brand. And then I followed it, and I thought this was important, and I know I'm putting them on blast, but this is just called constructive criticism. This isn't hating on anyone. I said, I'm sure, and I'm sure I don't know any of them,

but I'm sure they're out there. I wrote, I'm sure, you have dozens of streamers right now for Twitch that do this exact thing that you're looking for, and if you just gave them a little bit of direction, because all shows need a little direction, or we can get carried away with ourselves like my side quists. They need a little direction, a little support, and some financing. And I think you guys could get a great show with great numbers. But you should look internally before you start

looking externally for talent. That's just a cool way to run a company. I said. I know you're not in charge of the business model and the business structure over there, but always look internally first. Otherwise the person that comes in is gonna be hated by all the people that already exist there, and they'll start campaigning to for you not to listen to that show. That's not the way you want to do things when your business depends on

the artist. It was awesome to get to tell them no. The reason I get to tell them no is because of y'all listening. So this is more just an ode to to the federation. I appreciate you guys very much. You guys and gals, thank you for tuning in each week. So I'm working at w w E, I'm writing, and I meet William Regal, and I'm so impressed to meet this man, because when I was a kid, I was not the Goldberg guy. I did not like Goldberg. I didn't like the fact that he was running through everybody.

I didn't like the fact that legends, and not maybe not legends, but people who I grew up loving to watch, we're just getting mowed down. And it just seemed like everything they had done in the past didn't matter. And for those of you who don't know, Goldberg was like an x NFL guy who came in and got the

single greatest push of all time. He literally, I think it was like a hundred and thirty seven and oh or a hundred thirty two, some crazy number of victories, and no matter who it was, you just knew they were getting smashed. So the matches to me, weren't exciting, and a lot of guys that I felt were better wrestlers and who deserved a good run and opportunity, we're

just getting owned and smashed. Enter William Regal. Behind the scenes, there were a lot of wrestlers who did not like the way Bill Goldberg were protecting his partner in there was not always his first priority, and I believe it was simply because he was new and didn't necessarily know how. It wasn't like I don't leave. I've never heard anyway

that he was maliciously trying to hurt people. It's just he didn't have a lot of experience, and he wrestled stiff, which is the term they use, which means harder than you should, although some guys prefer that nowadays, especially in Japan. William Regal supposed to come in and he's supposed to lose to this man. For whatever reason, he decides not today. Not today. I'm gonna I'm gonna do the work I'm supposed to do, and the person who's supposed to win

this match is going to win the match. But there will be a lesson before I go down for a one to three, and damn was there. I would like all of you go on to YouTube and type William Regal, although it might have been Steven Regal back then, but either way, William Regal versus Goldberg w c W and you will see what I saw when it actually happened. And my mind is just getting blown because not only is he giving this man a lesson? He is winning

the match. He is he is working Goldberg all around the ring, tossing him, throwing him, swinging him, walking and running him, just schooling this man until the time is up. I don't know. Maybe the ref was like, what are you doing? Bro? Are you crazy? What the you gotta take the fall? I don't know what happened. Again. I would love to have him on and hear this story, if he could break it down. It's it's it's long

enough now that I feel like it's okay to talk about. Eventually, he does the work he's supposed to do, and Bill Goldberg goes over one to three and all my friends get together that night at Dion's Pizza in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and it's all we're talking about. And my friends that were hip to the internet were like, Oh, you don't even know, dude. Oh my gosh. People are freaking out. People are tripping out of there. William, he might get fired.

What's gonna Everybody was like, you know, speculating and gossiping the way little old ladies at the grocery store or at the beauty salon in the eighties would right it was. It was this magical moment for all of us. So here I am getting to meet him and he knows I'm a writer there and he's wanting to talk to me about story, something that we could get him on on TV. And he was so self aware, humble and

confident all at the same time. And I remember him saying, I'm not looking for a for a you know, a massive investment of time on television. But I believe there's some young men that I can help and we can put a story behind it and make the match means something as opposed to just a match where I lose that doesn't help me or him. And no one had said that to me before, no one, no no one in the in the brass had said it. No one. And I don't just mean about Regal, I just meant

the way he broke this down. And so I worked hard. It was it was inspiring to me, and I I remember I was writing stories and this was when like n X t IF, it was like a show on sci Fi and they had mentors and and such, and we were trying to work stories into there. And I just kept hitting brick wall after brick wall, and I and I didn't know. I didn't know why. I still don't know to this day. And I would talk to him and said, hey, man, my story didn't make TV

for you. I'm sorry. Can we you know, can we talk about something else next week? And so every three weeks or so we I would listen to his ideas. I would try to process some stuff, put some stuff on the table, and I could never add. Like most writers, this wasn't just with with Regal. This was with most talent, and with most writers, it was very difficult not to write a long term story to get one on TV, and then to maintain it less it was a top dog right. It was easy to write edge Dolf stuff

because that was over the World Heavyweight Championship. It was much more difficult to write a low key storyline, even one n x T and oh my gosh, I was there. Here's another side quest. I was there when Loki one. I went back because I wanted to write specifically for him, and they knew that, and then they debted his whole story, his whole storyline. It was a storyline that I wrote and changed it to him challenging instead of for the world title for the Inner Continental, which made no sense.

If you have a golden ticket to cash in for any title you choose, why would why wouldn't you choose the main one? To quote the late great Scott Hall, nobody gets in that business to aim for the middle. And that literally was the reason I walked away the second time, because I thought that storyline was so ridiculous. But back on track, it was difficult to maintain consistency and even to get the lesser characters if there wasn't a title in both. It was just so so difficult.

It was so so difficult. So as sort of a way for him to meet me halfway, he started putting over my promo class that the acting class that we've talked about a bunch and I mentioned in I mentioned in there in in one episode and if you haven't heard it, please go back and jump in. He had this promo where we did repetition back and forth. You're

locked into the dialogue that one other person says. And Fred Rosser was there, who was wrestling either in Japan or on the indies somewhere right now, and he's he's an openly gay wrestler, and William Regal is explaining to him why he doesn't belong in the w w E. And I remember this so specifically now doing this podcast. It's so this part is so ingrained in my brain. Rosser at the end of of William Regals promo, which

was challenging Fred, which he was supposed to do. Fred explodes and I mean explodes, and he screams out I belong and there's tears in his eyes. And I remember looking at this dude and being like, where is that coming from. This is a guy, I mean looks like black John Cena. He's a good looking I mean, we joked that he was the black John Cena. John even cracked a joke on Raw that his dad might have stepped out because this dude looks so much like him.

He was a good looking dude, he had the body, he could he could work at least to the to the to the lame person's eye. So I'm sitting there in that like what what where is that? Because it was not active, something came out, something came out, and that was the real moment that he came out. He

just didn't say the words. I've worked in Hollywood long enough, I've seen enough people who are afraid to come out because they're afraid men won't believe them as a leading man in a movie anymore, and they fear more the studios won't believe that, so they keep their stuff private. And it's only in certain moments where that insecurity, that fear comes out. Because we can't just live a lie our whole life, right like, it has to escape sometimes.

That's why I always say, just get it all out there. My mom used to say, people are gonna find a reason reason to hate you for something, whether it's your fault or not. So just like what you like and don't worry about all that other stuff. So I'm seeing this huge moment, and I don't even think Regal knows that he's partially responsible for that, that sort of release

of pain and fear. And I remember Fred held his head so high in his check was out, and he just looked so proud, you know, like say one more, say I don't belong here, sad, I wish you would, And Rigo just looked at him and smiled and nodded.

He said, well, perhaps I'm wrong, and everyone just it was dead silent, and they just erupted, erupted right, and I went up and I thanked him afterwards, and I just remember being like, man, that was like the most honesty, the most truth that anybody's thrown out there since his since his class started. And he asked me, this is so crazy. He didn't have to ask. He's William Regal. Would you mind? Would you mind? He has this great

British accent? Would you mind terribly if if next week I came in and Pops did a monologue from Shakespeare? And I'm like, wait, what you know? You know Shakespeare? You're you're supposed to be the villain, like you punch guys when they're not looking you. What do you mean you know? Shaky? He's like, oh yeah, and he starts

talking to me about various monologues from Shakespeare. When I was in acting class and auditioning to get agents, you know, we would pick monologues and I didn't know anything about Broadway or off Broadway or anything. I knew zero theater, so I thought all the monologues just came from Shakespeare. Right. So that's all I worked on from age eighteen to like nineteen and a half, and I had a good six or seven of them on the lock. Right. So this dude comes in the very next week and I

haven't said anything. There's probably eighteen to twenty young wrestlers in there. Natty nine Heart's in there, Um, Harry Smith, that's a bulldogs boy, the whole t J was there, Eve Torres, Gracie was there, Molina was there, Beth Phoenix, like we we were squad squad deep at that point. He comes in there and he kind of looks at me and I said, hey, RIEGO wants to go up. He's gonna he's gonna cut of promo and my man and stands up there and he's dressed night. You know,

he's dressed well. And he looks out at everyone and before he even speaks, he just takes in the room and he gives eye contact to every single wrestler in there, and it's just he's taking his time and he's showing them like when you're in the ring. Take it in. Allow your confidence to make silence a comfortable place that something. Actors here a lot right silence, Allow that to be comfortable with silence, or like Uma Thurman says in Pulp Fiction,

I'll cuss, but you know what she said. Everybody's seen the movie. So he takes it all in and he's like smiling at them, right, so it's a pleasant moment. And then he hits him and he says, this is from I think the Tempest. He hits him with you fools, I and my fellows are ministers of fate. The elements of whom your swords are tempered may as well wound the ould winds or with bemock that stabs kill, the still closing waters as diminished one down. That's in my plume,

and it's this ill he doesn't better than me. I'm not kid of the Brander, but yeah, that's Arials. That's Arials monologue from the Tempest. And he's talking smack to these guys that come at him right and basically saying, like, yo, those swords that are that you have are are are built from the things I control. You can't. You can't touch me. Like swinging that is like swinging your sword

in water. It'll hurt the water long before it takes one feather off my hat is like the American translation basically, and it goes on and on and on. I don't remember the whole thing I got. I got the first deadlines of every monologue. That's it, and everyone is I mean Stone sober as a judge, dead silent. It's like listening to the greatest closing argument in a courtroom ever. He has captivated me and every single man and woman

in that room. Nobody's breathing. And then he stops and he nods us in and he says thank you very much, so quietly and humbly, and he sits down. He sits down like a student. Then in amongst the other students and everybody's like, no, screw that, and they all stand up there clapping and they're like, oh my god. And I'm like, the first one up. I'm blown away. I love when people can communicate a language I don't understand and make me understand it. Does that make sense? Shakespeare

can be very complex. It's such an old, beautiful way of speaking, and we've butchered the English language with words like dude, gnarly, sick and I'm guilty of these things. But it can be hard to understand if you're just reading it off a page. But when somebody who it connects with starts to execute those lines for you. It was sort of, I said Kenneth Brown earlier, sort of when Kenneth Branna played Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter. Right, you're sitting there and you're like, uh yeah, no one

else should be doing that ever again. And if it's in a play, the guy who has to follow that is gonna suck. And when he executed this promo, like I legit said, don't worry, no one else has to do a promo today. We'll just do scene work. And I just had stuff from like previous weeks that maybe didn't work, and we would work on those segments and either rewrite them or if I felt they were well written by some of the other people, sometimes even Vince,

we would get another shot at it. Right, so the next time they got something that was phrased and worded that way, they would have more experience executing it, feel a little bit more confident about it. It was all about confidence for that. So now let's talk about the present day. William Regal he's left w W E or

was let go? He was basically the character that was running an XT when it was the Black and Gold brand, and it had a lot of love and respect and then behind the scenes, I don't know if he was running it. A lot of people say that that was that was triple h and I don't I don't know like the inside stuff or anything like that, but I'm sure his his opinion was respected and listened to. So he debuts in a e W a few months later in the middle of this conflict between John Moxley and

Daniel Bryant, and I love Daniel Bryant. He can somehow pull off this smirky heel character without being the typical here. It's it's just unique. There's something special about him when he goes hell. Everybody loves him as a baby face. Yes, yes, yes, that's what got on the championship, but I always preferred him as this sort of I don't even know how to describe the type of heel he is. It's just this confident screw you No, it's I don't even know he could. I'm not as good as him, so I

can't explain it. But he had this great conflict with Moxley, and they both have connections to William Regal from when they were young wrestlers coming up and training and learning the ropes. He had an influence in both their lives. All the smart fans in the audience know this. All the fans in the audience at this a e W show love William Regal the way I love William Regal, because everyone except Bill Goldberg loves William Regal. This man

comes out, the crowd goes crazy. He gets in the middle of the ring and he's basically berating both men, why are you fighting each other when you if you work together, you could take over this entire company. And they both kind of get in his face, or Moxley does, and Regal slaps him right across it like the way a father in the sixties slaps his son, and Moxley takes it because it's like a relationship of father in the sixties. And now Daniel Bryant's smirking and laughing like

you don't talk snack to the boss, bro Bow. Regal smacks in and his reaction is twice as good as Moxley's, and all of a sudden, the crowd is just they love They love this because he's a real dude, a credible dude, a e W still growing it and it to have his face there is just this feel good, yes, we're moving in the right direction kind of thing. No one's ever said a bad thing about Regal, and if they have it's time. It's them issue, not a Hymn issue, or it was early in his career as as a

veteran and behind the scenes producer. He is a gem of a human being. And I know people who know him to this day, who have worked with him to this day, and he is a gem of a human beings. So if you ever hear anything bad about William Regal, you let me know. You let me know, and I will handle it and would love to. We've had Look, we've had Tony conn on the show. We got to reach out to Tony. We gotta get Regal on the show. I would love to get his reaction to some of this.

Maybe he remembers it differently. I don't know. Oh, here's here's the side quest. This is the stupidest side quest ever. All right. I was telling you, I know wrestlers that that no Regal and and they speak highly of him, and I pitched this idea. So I want to preface this by saying this was a joke. All right. I texted my buddy, I said, A do you think if I did a bunch of steroids and human growth hormone and up my calorie intake to like forty five to

five thousand calories a day, but only did legs? Would only my legs get huge? And follow up question, how much would you pay to watch that guy wrestle? So these are see serious. Even though it's a joke, there's

serious questions. Would my legs get super jacked like Wiley Kyote in the road Runner cartoon when he takes the leg vitamins vitamins just for your legs and his legs got hella swolt And my finisher would just be a drop kick, just a regular drop kick, but you have but my legs are so buffed you would have to sell it like it was the sickest wrestling move that's ever been hit. Ever, you could call me King quads, Baby King quads. So that's what I'm gonna do, you guys,

I'm not joking. I'm deadly serious. I'm gonna take everything, the growths, the steroids, the guerrillas, sweats, the I'll rub deer antlers all over my quads every night before I go to sleep, and they'll grow exponentially at night, and I'll become King Quads. Now, granted, there may not be a brand out there promotion willing to hire me, but I'll create my own damn brand and the drop Kick is making a comeback people. That's the dumbest story I've

ever told. And I've never really into an episode on sort of a huh kind of feeling, and I feel like we've done a great job of that today. So thank you for listening, and we're gonna do an episode that's totally dedicated to y'all, which have made this podcast so much fun and I'm so proud of it. I really am. I'm so proud of it, and I know we're doing good when weirdos out there who don't give a crap about wrestling are like, hey, do you want

to do something about wrestling? Yes, I do. I'm already doing it, and I'm doing it with you guys the Federation. Thanks y'all. Peace. This has been a production of I Hearts Michael podcast Network. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H