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By Liam Byrne. Catch him on Twitter @tvtimelimit.

As an English wrestling fan, I am an unashamed William Regal mark. Some of my earliest memories of wrestling are tied to his run in WCW (initially as a face, before the necessary heel turn), especially when it came to his Television Title reigns. Week in, week out, you knew you were going to get quality wrestling from Regal as he tried his best to defeat his opponent, or just to get out of the ring still as the champion by any means necessary.

All told, Regal won nineteen titles in his runs in WCW and WWE, but never became the World Champion.

Until now.

With his defeat of Rob Van Dam, Regal could lay legitimate claim to being the ‘Real’ World Champion at that time. This was a dizzying height that arguably Regal would never get closer to than during his spell as the King of the Ring, a mantle that could have possibly allowed him a run at the heavyweight title. Unfortunately, Regal’s own personal demons would curtail that potential turn of events. However, there were windows of time during Regal’s in-ring tenure with the WWE that they saw fit to reward him with one of the other major singles titles.

Less than a week after Regal could stake a claim for metaphorical gold, he defeated Edge at the Royal Rumble for the real Intercontinental Title. A hard hitting match that centred around Edge breaking Regal’s nose in a previous encounter, and the ever present brass knuckles that Regal had used to give him several wins in recent weeks, the ref had seemed to have his eye out for nefarious use of a particular foreign object, reaching down Regal’s trunks and taking them off of him before the bell had even rang. Mid-match, Edge reversed a tiger bomb attempt with a backdrop, only for Regal to hold on and plant him with a tiger bomb in a pretty nifty looking spot. Regal even managed to slap on the Regal Stretch, only for Edge to get to the ropes before locking on his own version of the Stretch that made the Rock’s sharpshooter look like something from Pancrase.

Sensing victory slipping through his grasp, Regal turned to the knucks. Loading his fist up with an additional pair of knuckles that had somehow evaded the referee’s fumbling, Regal blocked an Edge spear the best way he knew how – by dragging the referee in front of it. As the two combatants got to their feet, Edge was dropped by The Power of the Punch and a groggy official counted the three count moments later to give Regal the Intercontinental Title. This was a huge moment, a real sense of valediction of Regal’s work in the WWE and their perception of him as a guy who could realistically shoulder a championship in a believable and interesting way.

More importantly for us, he had overcome his first roadblock in his ‘Real’ World Title reign, and a pretty sizeable one at that. On Raw the following night, Regal would once again defeat Edge, this time due to the official spotting brass knuckles that Edge had used to knock out the champion. For the moment at least, it felt like Regal was building some momentum as a champion, even if his two victories had been through foul means, rather than fair.

Unfortunately for Regal, an old nemesis would quickly derail all that good work. It took less than a minute, and the current title holder wouldn’t even hit a move of his own.

Luckily, the match wasn’t for the Intercontinental Title, but as the rules stipulate, the ‘Real’ World Title can change hands in a non-championship bout. That the WWE would consider it good booking to have your Intercontinental Title holder defeated in under minute, even when jumped before the bell and in a non-title match is beyond me, but we still seem to be in a post-Attitude Era malaise, where star power on TV cards seemed to be important than actual match quality. Thus, Regal was dethroned, though it wouldn’t be until Wrestlemania that this same opponent would take the Intercontinental Title as well.

All it took was a plancha over the top, a leaping kick off the top ropes, a rolling senton, a spinning heel kick and a frog splash. Five moves, three seconds, a second title reign for Rob Van Dam.

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For the first time since this project begun, we were about to see a string of defences and some actual time with a champion that won matches week by week on WWE TV. By that very nature, the potential next ‘Real’ World Champion could take a while to emerge. How long was RVD able to keep the title? Are we about to see the title jumping back into the main event picture? Or will RVD job to a wrestler who never got within a sniff of a world title run in reality?

Guess you’ll just have to wait until next week to find out.

Rankings:

  • Rob Van Dam (2 reigns, 3 title defenses)
  • William Regal (1 reign, 2 title defenses)
  • Chris Jericho (1 reign, 1 title defense)