WWE: 5 Reasons Why William Regal Should Be Champion

By Chris Quicksilver /

5. The PG Rating

In this era of WWE, the company has returned to the cartoonish, child-friendly wrestling of the Hogan era. Wrestlers no longer swear, spit at the camera or bleed profusely and the WWE Divas are more like Disney channel cartoon brats than the scantily clad nymphomaniac ring-sirens of old. Whilst this has turned a lot of Attitude Era fans away from WWE€™s product, it has enabled the company to clean up its public image and become popular with kids again. For me, this re-embracing of the family audience represents no conceptual problem. I don€™t need edgy content in my wrestling; I just like to be entertained. I have a stack of old ECW tapes in my living room, but I also have a bunch of stuff from the aforementioned Hogan era as well. When I was a kid, I liked Ricky Steamboat because he breathed fire and Mr. Perfect because he was colorful, arrogant and larger than life, it didn't occur to me what great wrestlers they were until much later. There's always a place for good wrestlers, no matter what the show's rating. However, when your show€™s content is essentially grown men beating each other up, a certain level of aggression and antagonism is unavoidable. This is where Regal would excel. Regal€™s peculiar English swear words and UK slang like €˜pillock€™ and €˜toe-rag€™ are not offensive words to the American ear. His promos, then, can pull out all the stops, as he lets fly a series of not-quite-insults at his would-be opponent. This could really catch on with American kids, in a way that's cheeky, but not actually offensive. As over as Regal was as an arrogant British heel, I think he could get even more over with today€™s young audience as €˜Prince€™ William Regal, or some such. To kids, he could almost be like an annoying teacher or something, which could, in turn, create a junior version of the €˜Austin vs McMahon€™ feud of the 1990€™s, as €˜cool kid€™ Cena puts the boot to his vile, older rival.