In Memory of Davey Boy Smith: The British
Bulldog
By Joshua Shibata
Davey Boy's pretty good. My son
Bruce met Dynamite over in England and Bruce sent him out here.
He liked the way he handled himself. In come Dynamite Kid. Then
later on, a month or two later, Bruce sent Davey Boy out here.
Davey liked it so much out here that he ended up marrying my youngest
daughter [Diana]. Davey was a one of the better built kids in
the industry. He had an excellent body and was a pretty strong,
gutsy guy. It took a pretty good horse to pull him down.
Stu
Hart from a Nov. 1997 interview with SLAM! Wrestling
The
life of ‘The British Bulldog’ Davey Boy Smith can be best described
as a life of a man struggling to beat the odds. Whether it was
struggling to be a main eventer in the WWF or struggling with
a career threatening back injury or with the deaths of his family
and friends, Smith never backed down from any opposition. Sadly
though they were just some obstacles that even Smith’s huge physique
could not topple. A deadly drug habit, a failing marriage and
a fallout with his estranged family left Smith’s life in shambles…and
some to suspect to his untimely death. Yet like the tragic heroes
in Shakespeare’s play Smith is just that, a hero to the many fans
who have watched him grow from one half of the most innovating
tag team in the 80s to one half of the most talented tag team
in the 90s. Smith has always been seen as representing strength,
pride and a good dose of humor. Loved by most who knew him, it
is really sad to see a person like Davey Boy Smith cut down in
the middle of his life.
Born
David Smith in Manchester, England, Smith spent his life trying
to stay out of trouble. An early job saw him deliver fruits and
vegetables to neighbors. When a local wrestling school opened
up, Smith saw it as a great chance to start his own professional
career, while his parents saw it as a great chance to keep the
young Smith out of trouble. Trained under Ted Betley at the young
age of 12, Smith made his pro debut at the age of 15. Soon Smith
would meet two people who will become very influential, both positive
and negative, in his life. The first would be a stiff wrestler
named Tom Billington who would later become Smith’s first, and
to many his best, partner the Dynamite Kid. The other would be
Bruce Hart, who would later become Smith’s brother in law. At
the time though Bruce was a star in his father Stu’s Stampede
Wrestling in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Bruce immediately took
a liking to the two young Brits and asked them to come over to
Canada to wrestle for his father.
So in
1981 Smith and Billington would move to Canada and end up staying
in Bret Hart’s house. There at Bret’s house Smith would meet his
future wife and youngest of the Hart family daughters; Diana Hart.
Success for the future British Bulldogs would come easy for them
in Stampede Wrestling, but they will not get international fame
until they got to tour Japan. Taking advantage of a working deal
between Stampede and All Japan, the Bulldogs were sent to Japan
to take on the best in the East. While the Dynamite Kid made headlines
feuding with the original Tiger Mask, Davey Boy had many classic
matches with an upcoming high flyer named Cobra. After touring
for about a year, the Bulldogs returned to Canada to find that
Stu’s promotion was bought out by an upstart promoter named Vince
McMahon Jr. and the WWF.
With the acquisition
of some new talent McMahon Jr. didn’t know what to do with some
of them, as evident by Bret Hart’s first Cowboy gimmick. Yet McMahon
Jr. took a liking to Davey Boy and the Dynamite Kid thanks to
watching their matches in Japan. McMahon had so much confidence
in them that he allowed them to take part in the WWF Light Heavyweight
Title Tournament in Japan. Unfortunately McMahon did not believe
the small Davey Boy and even smaller Dynamite Kid could contend
with the giants of the WWF. So came the idea of putting the two
together like they did with fellow Stampede colleagues Bret Hart
and Jim Neidhart, and forming the British Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs would
go on to win over the many fans of the WWF and the critics who
thought they were too small to contend, by becoming the hardest
hitting and high flying team in the WWF. After a lengthy chase
for the tag team titles, which almost lasted a year, the Bulldogs
finally, snagged gold by beating the Dream Team (Greg ‘the Hammer’
Valentine and Brutus Beefcake) at Wrestle Mania II. Many would
consider this match to be the best match in Wrestle Mania history,
at the time, before it was bested a year later by the classic
Intercontinental Match between Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat.
The Bulldogs would go on to keep the titles for nearly eight months
before losing them to the Hart Foundation. Sadly that would be
the only time the Bulldogs would hold onto the titles as more
and more tag teams were being introduced into the WWF. After realizing
they weren’t getting anywhere, even with the introducing of their
mascot the little bulldog Matilda (which was actually Davey’s
dog) the two decided to leave the WWF and tour Japan again. There
they would have a falling out which has had so many versions that
I wont go into it in this column, but when the Bulldogs returned
they decided to go their separate ways. Dynamite was ready to
return to the WWF as a singles competitor, which is what McMahon
wanted to do considering Dynamite was the more popular of the
two Bulldogs, but unfortunately the rigors of Dynamite’s stiff
style, his constant steroid use and an car accident which almost
killed him derailed those plans and left Dynamite a very bitter
man. Davey though went to WCW for a very brief and somewhat laughable
stint, remember the little skit where the Big Evil Van Vader tried
to blow up Sting’s yacht…and Davey Boy came to the rescue….no
I am not making this up, WCW was that BAD!!! I didn’t even mention
Robocop’s cameo in WCW…but I digress.
Anyway in the end
Davey made his return to the WWF and was given a good solid run.
A highlight of this run would of course be the Intercontinental
Title Match between Davey and Bret ‘the Hitman’ Hart in Wimbledon,
London. There in front of his own countrymen, Smith pinned Hart
to win his very first singles title. Many would call that match
the match of the year, and in numerous interviews Smith would
say that was his best match ever. Unfortunately Smith’s run with
the title would only last two months, as McMahon Jr. would find
a new golden child in Shawn Michaels. After that Smith would go
onto midcard limbo never to really find his feet, he was even
put into a lousy tag team with the washed up ‘All American’ Lex
Luger called the Allies (you see because Bulldog is British and
during WWII Britain and America were Allies..hahahah). Smith would
finally find his nitch with another tag team, this time with brother
in law, Owen Hart. The two would become one of the most technically
talented tag teams in the WWF at a time where they were suffering
from a lack of tag teams and captured the gold in no time. From
there success was just booming for the Bulldog, becoming the very
first European Champion and a member of the hated/loved Hart Foundation…the
Bulldog was on top of the world and was soon seen as a main eventer.
Then came the Montreal
Screw job and all the shit hit the fan for Davey Boy Smith’s life.
After Bret was fired, Smith had to go under surgery for a nagging
knee injury, which was made worst when he twisted it trying to
separate Bret and Vince McMahon during their backstage altercation
after Survivor Series. When he returned Smith did not like the
new WWF ‘Attitude’ and he decided to call it quits. After paying
a $150,000 fine for breaching his contract, Smith joined his brothers
in laws Bret and Neidhart in WCW. Upon his debut Smith found himself
being thrust into the PPV spotlight going against Steve McMicahel
and tagging with Neidhart. Unfortunately Smith’s WCW career lasted
only seven months when he injured his back at Fall Brawl 98. During
a tag match with Neidhart against Disco Inferno and Alex Wright,
Smith was power slammed onto a trap door under the wrestling mat,
which was supposed to be used for Warrior’s smokey entrance. The
injury, which was supposed to only keep Smith sidelined for a
few months, got infected nearly dissolving three discs in Smith’s
spine. Smith was in a lot of pain and the only way to fix it would
involve replacing 4 inches of his spine with titanium, but Smith
would never be able to wrestle again. To make matters worst Smith’s
sister Tracey succumbed to cancer, no more then four months later
Smith’s mom would die of cancer as well.
Battered and recovering
from surgery Smith got the phone call that many sidelined WCW
stars got; his contract with WCW was terminated. The very next
month Smith would get another phone call telling him that his
best friend and brother in law, Owen Hart died in the ring. All
of this lost would deter a normal person but to Smith, it gave
him more motivation to get back into shape and return to the thing
that mad him happy, wrestling. Honoring Owen Hart, Smith trained
rigorously and did what the doctors said he would not be able
to do, returned to the ring. Unfortunately Smith’s return would
cause a lot of controversy. After all of the bad blood between
the Harts and the McMahons, Smith signed with the WWF. Immediately
Bret wrote an article in his monthly Calgary Sun column that bad
mouthed Smith’s decision: “Saw a strange sight yesterday. Dogs
rolling in manure and loving every minute of it. For some reason,
it made me think of how the British Bulldog will do anything to
work for the WWF (actually Smith would end up rolling in manure
for the WWF)," wrote Bret. "There were these four little
pigs in the pig races. The guy there told me they'd sell out their
mothers and brothers and sisters to the slaughterhouse, just for
those mini donuts. Kind of reminds me of ... er ... I won't go
there this week," Bret also wisecracked. Sadly this would
create tension between the Hart family and tension between Hart
and Smith, who did pay $150,000 to do the right thing and join
Bret in WCW.
When
Smith returned to the WWF for the second time he was immediately
given the Hardcore title, though he would hand it over to Crash
Holly. Following a European title run, Smith was put into the
Six Pack Challenge Main Event at Unforgiven 99 taking the place
of the injured Undertaker. After that Smith was given a feud with
the Rock that really didn’t work for anyone, even the manure rolling.
Sadly Smith’s run with the WWF was cut short when he decided to
ask McMahon for help to be put into drug rehab. See since his
back injury, Smith has been addicted to painkillers…sadly something
that is all to common in the sport of Professional wrestling.
The dirty deed killed many wrestlers including Smith’s friend
and Hart Foundation mate, Brian Pillman. His drug addiction was
not only killing himself but also killing his marriage to Diana
resulting in a separation. Smith decided to try and handle the
problem and many supported him. Three days later Smith checked
himself out of the rehab clinic….then the threats started to come.
October
2000, policemen arrested Smith on charges of threatening his estranged
wife, Diana, her new boyfriend and her sister Ellie Hart-Neidhart
(the wife of Jim Neidhart). Spending a few nights in jail where
reports claimed that he spent it signing autographs for inmates
and cracking jokes, Smith was released. The Hart family was in
shambles. Diana’s new all tell book was released around this time
angering Bret and having him say on more then one occasion that
he would have nothing to do with his family anymore. In December
Smith was dropped of all charges and in an interview he claimed
that he didn’t want to have anything to do with the Hart family,
even though he was seeing at the time Andrea Hart, the estranged
wife of Bruce Hart, the man who first discovered Smith. No more
than a week after having charges dropped against him, Smith was
arrested again for threatening Bruce Hart. It would take another
year before those charges were dropped.
After
all of this, news around Smith would die down and the last time
I heard about him was no more than a few weeks ago when he was
in the ring with his 15 year old son Harry wrestling together.
Though
it may seem that Bulldog’s life took a turn for the worst before
his death, that is not the way I see it. I see a man who struggled
so much against death, injury and addiction to right himself...
and I do believe he got that before he died. Many claim that Smith
was very happy to be wrestling with his son and very proud that
he wanted to follow his footsteps. My first memory of Smith was
when I saw him wrestle on WWF Superstars..I didn’t know anything
about the British Bulldogs but I liked Smith’s character. He was
strong, big and just had a cool name. Smith was well loved by
both peers and fans and though he was stiff in the ring to many
a jobber, he was always seen as a figurehead and inspiration to
other wrestlers. After reading about his life, I feel he can truly
be seen as an inspiration to those struggling with adversity.
The Bulldog will surely be missed and I hope that he and Owen
are having fun ribbing the angels in heaven.
Godspeed
Bulldog
