William Regal Was Given 24 Hours To Live In 2018

AEW's William Regal dives deep on the health issues that almost took his life in 2018.

By Andy H Murray /

AEW

While rumours of William Regal's "health issues" appear to have been greatly exaggerated last week, the new All Elite Wrestling signing has dived deep on the condition that almost took his life in 2018, doing so during his appearance on Talk is Jericho.

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Speaking with his new AEW roster-mate, Chris Jericho, Regal revealed that he spent eight weeks in hospital over Christmas 2018. Suffering from sepsis in his leg, the 53-year-old faced the prospect of amputation and, at one point, was given just 24 hours to live (h/t WrestleTalk):-

“Once I was released – I went home two weeks before Christmas. The reason being, which we might get to, the last time my family were all together was 2018 for Christmas, and I was in hospital for eight weeks. I was given at one point 24 hours to live, I had sepsis in my leg, they were gonna cut my leg off. This is January 4, 2019. So I insisted on going home for Christmas, because you know I’ve been through a lot. I had a hell of year 2018… sorry, it’s a bit, like, I usually just tell people, but now I’m sat with you and I’m comfortable, things hit you a little bit. 2018, you know I’ve had a lot of heart trouble at different times. And since 1998, I got Pericarditis, and Pericarditis is an imflamation of the sack around your heart, and what it does is scar that sack."

Continuing, Regal spoke of wrestling on a broken neck between 1993 and 2014, having suffered the break while taking a bridged German Suplex from Ricky Steamboat. All in all, Regal estimates that he spent around 26 years working 150 matches annually with a banged-up body and minimal time off:-

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“So I ended up having my neck done in 2014, that was the end of my wrestling career. In 2013, I wasn’t wrestling that much, I was winding down, doing a lot of commentary, whatever I was doing with NXT, which was all great. And I knew my time was… you know, I was beat up. I worked it out – if you take away the last few years of my career, take away when I say I started the first year, so go from 1994 to when I finished, apart from a year being out, a few times off – and I took very little time off with some major injuries, you just never never said anything, just didn’t do it – and a couple of suspensions, I wrestled solidly for a minimum of 150 days a year. Minimum, for 26 years. You (Jericho) were smart because you used to take a couple of years off every now and then… you had other… well I don’t have any other interests or anything else going on and it was always that thing that was drilled into me. I always thought, ‘If I can just get a 20 year career’, I was in wonderland.”

It was reported last week that Regal's current health issues were "far more serious than ever have come out", which appeared to come from an AEW Dynamite promo in which the veteran spoke of "not having long left." Fortunately, Regal moved quickly to correct the story:-

The former NXT General Manager's AEW charges, Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson, face Chuck Taylor and Wheeler Yuta on tonight's episode of Dynamite. This will be their second bout under Regal's management following the legend's debut at Revolution 2022.