In February of 1992, William Regal had the offer presented to him by way of a friend.
The latest episode of William Regal’s ‘Gentleman Villain’ podcast was a Q&A edition of the show. As the conversation rolled on, it was mentioned that Regal had said in the past that he nearly launched his own wrestling promotion.
He expanded on that note and said the front money came from a close friend of his who he chose not to name. Regal said this friend had nothing to do with the wrestling business and was an entrepreneur. The offer came about when this friend drove Regal to two of his bookings in England and said individual enjoyed the shows, but questioned why there was not more going on such as selling t-shirts and snacks.
He asked Regal if he thought he could run something like that. Regal added that this all came about while he was wrestling for Brian Dixon’s All Star Wrestling promotion.
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. He wasn’t nothing to do with the wrestling business. He’s just a very close friend of mine. I’ll leave his name out of this… there was a time when I didn’t have a car and he was — and he had all kinds going on. He had nightclubs and all kinds of stuff going on and a big building for him and all kinds of stuff and he was picking me up at my house and taking me to shows and he took me to a show and it was in Aldon [England]. It was a double. The last night I was in England before I — so unless it was a leap year, it was the 28th of February, 1992. He took me to a double and it was Aldon first which is just on the outskirts of Manchester and then Bolton on the other side of Manchester. So I did a double out there, both for All Star Promotions and he watched the show and he said — because business for All Star Promotions was on fire in ‘92, mostly because of Dave Taylor and Fit Finlay wrestling each other. But he asked me, ‘Darren, 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 run 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 — [Regal laughed]… 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.
Regal is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling and is a member of the Blackpool Combat Club. The faction was highlighted in the final segment of AEW Quake By The Lake which was capped off by the return of CM Punk.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit the Gentleman Villain podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
