WWE’s William Regal has had a rough time of it recently, with Powerslam magazine referring to him as a ‘demoted drug failure disgrace’ in their most recent issue.

True, Regal did fail his second wellness test on May 19, but I don’t see Powerslam taking pot shots at the similarly ‘troubled’ Jeff Hardy, of whom they generally seem to have a more positive attitude on, despite his similarly chequered past.

Regal has been a consistently solid to excellent ring performer since his stateside debut in late 1992, and has also been one of the more entertaining characters since the inception of the Lord Steven Regal character in late 1993…

A look back at WrestleMania XV, now available as part of Silver Vision’s Tagged Classics series

Well it would seem that WWE’s annual mass- talent release is under way. As I previously noted in my draft column series, WWE tends to like to let go a number of performers around the time of the draft lottery (prior to the advent of the draft a similar firing would ‘traditionally’ take place immediately after Wrestlemania), and it also seems that a fair few of those released are drafted beforehand for some bizarre reason, only to never appear on television for their new programme.
While some releases have already occurred …

For this week’s column I want to do a more traditional historical piece on the power hierarchy of the WWF(E). While Vince McMahon has always maintained overall creative control of his product, there has generally been a constantly changing pattern of creative staff and booking team members.
What I want to do here is write a potted history (in no way exhaustive) of these different creative eras from 1995 to the present day, encompassing memorable themes, matches, and angles, as well as highlighting the actual wrestlers who were mainly featured by …

In the first ever WWEpreview half-year awards I voted JBL as ‘least improved’ wrestler in the WWE this year. This was due to my feelings that he simply had not improved since his December comeback.
Sure, I agree that some initial ring rust would not have been unheard of, but almost everything JBL has participated in, ring-work wise, has not been up to scratch. Then I went away and thought about it, looked at some of his older work, and thought again.
While many now look back on JBL’s 2004-2006 run, and …

Following up from my last column, it looks like not Big Daddy V, but Mark Henry is the commonly labelled useless lump who is going to be in receipt of the big ECW ‘Main Event level’ push.
Oh well, good luck to him, and he’s another monster heel character who has come on in leaps and bounds since 2003 (shame he’s been employed since 1996, but oh well you can at least give him points for improving recently!}
With regards to this year’s draft’s similarities with past trends, they’ve ended up pretty …

For my next column I was going to write some sort of ‘best matches’ piece on Chris Benoit. However, while looking around the ‘net this week I noticed that there is already a lot of this sort of column up, plus I think that actually compiling a list of great Benoit matches (even after last June’s tragic events) is to easy, as long as you are able to differentiate Benoit the worker from Benoit the person on those fateful days.
That being said I decided to go for something a bit …

With the latest WWE draft occurring this Monday, I have been retrospectively looking at each of the previous talent exchanges in order to look at the impact they have had on the talent involved.
As an aside, I should note that while there was not an official draft in 2006, Paul Heyman was allowed to choose two wrestlers from RAW or Smackdown to participate in the launch of the new ECW brand. These two picks were Rob Van Dam and Kurt Angle.
(i) Van Dam’s career mishaps have been documented in all …

With the 2008 WWE draft looming, I’ve decided to look at the past talent swaps, next up is 2005’s edition.
You would have thought that WWE’s creative brain trust would have learnt some lessons after some of the negative aspects that resulted from the original draft; this column will look at what did happen, and the resulting effect on both RAW and Smackdown.
(i) RAW started the process this year, and the first draftee, WWE Champion John Cena, certainly looked poised to make more of an impact than the previous year’s Shelton …

With the 2008 WWE draft looming, I’ve decided to look at the past talent swaps, starting with 2004’s edition, to see exactly what being drafted has done to the careers of those affected.
In hindsight, being drafted often tends to have the exact opposite effect to what you would assume would be the desired result, i.e. stale wrestlers rejuvenate their careers thus adding interest to the respective brands, and making more money for the WWE, instead end up being buried or forgotten once moved from their comfort zones…
(i) Rene Dupree was …

In my last column I looked at the evolution of the One Night Stand concept, pointing out that this year’s main event of Undertaker vs. Edge in a TLC match seems to be at odds with the original idea.james@wwepreview.com
However, from recently reading various old magazines and newsletters, I have come to the conclusion that Undertaker’s involvement in such a match might not be such a stretch after all.
This column looks at the career and evolution of WWE’s longest continuously active performer, and charts how he has been able to defy …

This Sunday, WWE presents One Night Stand 2008, a pay per view that with its gimmick match overkill bears a closer resemblance to the WCW ‘Uncensored’ monstrosities than it’s original extreme offerings.
Since the original ECW One Night Stand in 2005, both the extreme pay per view concept and the very perception of ECW itself have changed almost beyond recognition. The 2005 card gave us The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer vs the Dudleys as the main event – a match reminiscent of such fondly remembered brawls as the climax of best …