10 Best WWE European Champions

2. William Regal

As British wrestling fans of a certain era, obviously we love William Regal. Whether he was a Real Man’s Man, getting his tea peed in or kissing a billionaire’s bare backside, he was always good value and made you want to watch whatever he was involved in.

That Regal returned to the company to have the run that he did have is something of a minor miracle, since substance abuse issues had hampered his initial run in ’98 and subsequently led to WCW issuing a pink slip. If WCW decided your personal demons were too bad to do business with you, you knew you had a bit of a problem.

But Regal also knew that he needed to get help and to help himself and quickly went back to work, cleaning up and proving his worth in WWE’s developmental leagues. After a bit of time to get rid of the ring rust, Regal reappeared on television as the snobbish Goodwill Ambassador.

Now that WWE had a true European star eager to prove themselves in their ranks, it only made sense that he would go after the title most closely aligned with his homeland.

After defeating Al Snow for the title, Regal quickly went about defending against all comes and briefly found himself in the main event mix, competing with Steve Austin, The Rock and Kurt Angle. That he was in there with the best in the biz was a good omen for both Regal and the championship he held, whether he won the matches or not

Regal would lose the belt to Crash Holly and Test before being elevated to Intercontinental level, but he returned to the European Title scene once again in 2002, having half decent matches in the days of RUTHLESS AGGRESSION.

A fine champion and a fine man!