Five Brass Rings

courtesy: WWE

It's the fifth day of Christmas and instead of gold rings, we're getting brass ones.  As in brass knuckles.

I understand that there are technically four rings for the fingers, and the fifth isn't really ring shaped, but I'm trying to go with a theme here, so bare with me.

Brass knuckles are an interesting weapon of choice in wrestling. So interesting in fact, some regions actually had Brass Knuckles Champions.  Guys like Blackjack Mulligan, Rocky Johnson, and Black Bart all held the NWA Florida version.

I never saw any of these matches, as the title was retired in 1984, which was about the time I started watching wrestling.  But I've seen plenty of villains use the knucks to their advantage.

Floyd "Money" Mayweather used them to knock out the Big Show at Wrestlemania 24.  I was there for that, and thought the booking of the match and it's ending were actually pretty creative.  I was skeptical of the match when it was first announced.  I had imagined another catastrophe like the Big Show-Akebono Sumo match at Wrestlemania 21.  At least at this one, Show was fully clothed.

My memories of the knuckles include Randy Savage using them to win the Intercontinental title from Tito Santana.  But I'm pretty sure they were wrapped in something and not the exposed knucks we see today.  Also, back in the World Class days, Gino Hernandez used them to beat faces like Kerry Von Erich among others.  In fact, Gino was the Texas territory brass knuckles champion.   Other legends like Fritz Von Erich, Abdullah the Butcher, and Bruiser Brody also wore that title.  It was an active belt off and on since 1953, before the NWA changed it to the Texas hardcore title in 1999.  That version only lasted a couple of years.

While there are no longer any brass knuckles champions, or at least none that I'm aware of, the weapon is still used today.  We don't seem them a whole lot, but William Regal is probably the wrestler most synonymous with using the foreign object.  Edge used them to beat John Cena at SummerSlam a few years back as well.

Running down our 12 Days of Christmas list (the whole point of this post)
A Red Rooster in a Wrestling Ring
2 Turtle Jobbers
3 French Canadians
4 Wooing Horsemen
5 Brass Rings

Besmirched

Regal and Me at Wrestlemania 24 in Orlando

Okay, the title on this one is a little lame, but I had trouble coming up with something.  News is going around today that William Regal is retiring from wrestling.  Although I don't know if it's been confirmed anywhere.

Apparently, this statement made overseas is what's spawning the speculation.  This info comes from The Sun:  "Maybe this is my last tour — so thank you very much."  As some fans booed the mention of retirement, William added: "No no no, believe me this was the way I wanted to end it all. Thank you."

Regal is only 42.  And in wrestling, does anyone ever really retire?  Heck, Ricky Steamboat came back after a 15 year absence so anything is possible.  

Regal has been involved in wrestling for more than 27 years.  He spent a great deal of his career in WCW and WWE.  Never won the world title but he was the WCW TV champion, and held the WWE Intercontinental, European, Hardcore, and world tag team titles.  Most recently, he was crowned King of the Ring in 2008.  

Regal has certainly done a lot over the years.  He had some really great matches with Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero among others.  Regal is also pretty good on the stick.  He served as Raw's General Manager and was apparently the first person to join Vince McMahon's Kiss My Ass Club.

Besides his work in the ring, I was a fan of his work outside of it too.  I thought he made an excellent manager when he was leading Vladamir Koslov and Ezkiel Jackson around.  Hopefully, Regal will resume his role as a manager for someone.  That would be great to see the trend of the heel manager return.  But that's a conversation for another day.

As you can see from the picture above, I got to meet Regal before Wrestlemania 24 in Orlando.  He was doing one of the meet and greet autograph sessions.  Seemed like a nice guy, but they herd fans in to those things like cattle, so there's no way to really know for sure.  Quick hand shake, sign the book, pose for a picture, and say something that doesn't sound too markish.  That's how those things go down.

So if this is the end of Regal's career, I salute him.  He has accomplished a lot and I think has more to offer the business as an agent.  Hopefully we haven't really seen the last of the Brit.