10 Times WWE Hurt Itself By Punishing Its Stars

6. Regal Fails A Wellness Test

On 21 April 2008, decorated wrestling veteran William Regal won the King of the Ring Tournament on a special three-hour Monday Night RAW, when he defeated Finlay in the semi-final, and CM Punk in the final - the latter by submission, the first man ever to do so.

Regal had been the RAW general manager for eight months at this point, and his heel work was practically flawless. The King Of The Ring win seemed set to forecast big things for him. Sadly, the big push was not to be. Regal would fail a Wellness test the following month, and since it was his second, was suspended for sixty days.

To this day, Regal claims that the test must have picked up on a supplement that he'd ingested by mistake: certainly, there was no suggestion that he was in any way back on the recreational drugs he'd kicked a decade earlier. Nonetheless, a sixty day suspension in the fast moving world of the WWE was as good as forever. His push was cancelled, and all plans for him curtailed as booking was redrawn around his absence. He lost a Loser Leaves RAW match to Ken Kennedy at the end of May, and when he returned would stare at the lights for CM Punk - the man he'd beaten in the King Of The Ring finals.

Regal would never be pushed as far and as fast again - but at least he eventually became one of the most important men in the company with his behind-the-scenes role in NXT.