Former WCW and WWE star Dave Taylor recently appeared on the Inside The Ropes podcast and spoke about his time in WCW, wrestling for WWE at 49 years old, becoming a trainer at NXT, drug issues people had in WCW and much more. Below are some highlights of what Taylor said about William Regal and the drug culture in WCW:
“[William] Regal came here (US) in 1992 or 93,” Taylor said. “Then I came across to visit him and did my first show which was World War 3 in 95. He’d called me and said they’re wanting guys to come over and they’ll pay for your ticket and everything, no problem and put you in World War 3. I said ‘Yeah I’ll do it, no problem.’ So I came and I stayed with him. He’d had some injuries with his knee and that, and he’d started taking pills and that sorta stuff. I saw that side of him. There’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing I could say. Guys always have an excuse, who are doing that sorta thing. Then I came back home and the year after I came back to live here and he’d got really bad. I’m surprised he didn’t die. But he got through it all. I’ve seen some bad things with him. It wasn’t just him then.
There were a lot of guys, a lot. A lot of them have passed away. The guys who were into what people call ‘the demons.’ They’d all say that they got injured and started taking pain pills and it started from there. When I got injured, I wouldn’t take pain pills or anything like that. Neither did Finlay. Me and Finlay were pretty much the only guys in WCW that never took a drug of any kind. I remember getting on a plane one morning and one of the guys passed me a box of pills, 6 o’clock in the morning, and said, “Here you go, you and Finlay take some of these and get yourself a nice little buzz.” I passed them back and said “Nah you’re OK, we don’t do this s–t.” He asked what we do for the pain, I told him we just suffer. They’re thinking, god they must be tough. But it’s not that at all. It’s that you see what that stuff does and you think to yourself, ‘I don’t wanna get involved in that s–t.”
