SO LONG, SUNSHINE: WILLIAM REGAL TO RETIRE (SOON)

Which I guess is a headline you could do for anybody. "John Morrison to Retire (someday, probably)".

But William Regal did announce at the RAW house show from London's O2 Arena that this current tour of the UK would likely be his last, as you can see for yourself in this video (originally found on Arda Ocal of Right After Wrestling's Twitter):

What may be the saddest thing (to me at least... I get emotional when wrestlers retire, okay?!/?!) is how close Regal was to the main event right before his second wellness strike. He was the King of the Ring, he was the RAW GM, and he was doing crazy shit like pulling RAW off the air and turning the lights off in the main events and generally drawing some serious heat. It really seemed like he was on his way to a legitimate push towards the World Title picture.

I had no idea of his struggle with drugs earlier in his career until I watched the McMahon DVD a few weeks ago. In the extras, Regal explains how fucked up he was when he started with the WWF and how Vince essentially turned his life around for him by firing him, and always offering a spot back in the company (and maybe he got him into rehab too, I kinda forget). Either way it's a really powerful interview that shows a side of him I'd never seen before. Well, obviously. I guess he wouldn't just show up on RAW after drinking Jericho's urine and be like, "ah yes, clean urine... I once had clean urine..." and break down crying.

Regal's done so much in his career it's fucking crazy. He's been wrestling for 27 years, won over 60 titles around the world and had a big hand in training the best wrestler in the world (not Skip Sheffield). He's also been one of the best stiff-looking, but not actually stiff-wrestling wrestlers ever, as evidenced in this match against Lance Storm where he goes absolutely batshit crazy, but Storm has mentioned on his website that he didn't feel a thing (if I remember correctly).

I hope he gets some kind of sweet sendoff. Maybe tearing the house down with Daniel Bryan, or getting some kind of title shot... whatever it is, I hope it's not taking a way-too-obvious blade job from Triple H, because that's been done already.

Here's to the reigning King of the Ring. Let's hope that once you do retire, you'll be just making Bryan Danielson clones in FCW. Instead of the default SVR CAW clones they've been churning out. We gotta change that clone setting. It's killing me. Killing. Me.