Davey Boy Smith

Davey Boy Smith, best known to fans as The British Bulldog, was one of the most prominent British wrestlers of his era. He combined compact power with agility and a strong connection with fans in both tag teams and singles matches. Across the 1980s and 1990s, he became a key figure in Stampede Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), even though he never held a recognised world heavyweight title.

David Smith was born on November 27, 1962, in Golborne, Lancashire, England. He grew up in a working-class family, and one of his relatives was Tom Billington, who later became famous as the Dynamite Kid. This family connection, along with the British wrestling scene in and around Manchester, drew him into the wrestling business while he was still a teenager.

Smith started wrestling very young. He first worked on the British circuit as “Young David”, appearing on shows that included the World of Sport television program, where he faced opponents like Dave Finlay and Bernie Wright.

His work there caught the attention of Bruce Hart, who was scouting talent for his father, Stu Hart, and his Stampede Wrestling promotion in Calgary. Smith traveled to Canada, where Stu Hart and trainer Roy Wood pushed him hard in the famous Hart Dungeon.

Stampede Wrestling became the first major stage of his career. In 1982, he beat Dynamite Kid to win the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship, his first major title. He later held Stampede’s International Tag Team Championship with Bruce Hart and Dynamite Kid as his partners.

Around the same time, he began working tours in Japan. In New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), he was part of a three-way rivalry with Dynamite Kid and The Cobra over the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title. Those years gave him regular high-level matches and helped him mix British mat work with the more intense Japanese style.

Out of that scene came the British Bulldogs. Smith and Dynamite Kid began teaming regularly in Stampede and Japan, then moved from New Japan to All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) in 1984, where they took part in the annual tag league and gained a strong reputation as a high-impact team. Their work there set the stage for a jump to the expanding WWF.

Vince McMahon brought the Bulldogs into the WWF in the mid-1980s when he purchased Stampede’s contracts. Managed by Lou Albano, they quickly became one of the promotion’s most exciting tag teams. They feuded with the Hart Foundation and focused on Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake, the Dream Team.

At WrestleMania 2 in April 1986, the Bulldogs beat the Dream Team for the WWF Tag Team Championship in Chicago, with Albano and Ozzy Osbourne in their corner. The reign lasted close to 9 months and established them as world-class stars.

While in the WWF, the Bulldogs added a real bulldog named Matilda as a mascot and continued feuding with teams such as the Islanders, Demolition, and the Rougeau Brothers.

Backstage tensions, especially issues between Dynamite Kid and Jacques Rougeau, and disputes over travel and management, eventually led to their exit from the company in 1988. After leaving, they returned to Stampede and worked for AJPW again, but by 1989 the team had split, and their relationship never fully recovered.

Smith then moved toward a singles career. He briefly returned to the WWF before signing with WCW in 1993. There, he was presented as a top-level babyface, often teaming with Sting and challenging Big Van Vader.

He fought Vader for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Clash of the Champions XXIV and joined Sting’s team in the WarGames main event at Fall Brawl 1993. Though he wouldn’t win the world title there, the run showed that he could headline American pay-per-views on his own.

By 1990, Smith was back in the WWF, and this time the focus was squarely on him as The British Bulldog. He came in with much more muscle than his original run and was pushed as a powerhouse singles wrestler.

The peak of this period came at SummerSlam 1992, held at Wembley Stadium in London. In front of a huge crowd in his home country, Smith defeated his brother-in-law Bret Hart in the main event to win the Intercontinental Championship. The match is often cited as one of the finest in WWF history and became the defining moment of his singles career.

After a spell away, Smith returned again in 1994 and became part of the extended Hart family stories. He teamed with Owen Hart in the mid-1990s, and the pair won the WWF Tag Team Championship in 1996. That same year, he became the first WWF European Champion by winning a tournament in Germany, then went on to hold the belt for 205 days, which remains the longest reign for that title.

In 1997, he defended the European Championship against Shawn Michaels in the main event of the One Night Only pay-per-view in Birmingham, another show built around his home country appeal. Around this time, he also joined the Hart Foundation faction, which framed the Hart family as heroes in Canada and villains in the United States.

Smith’s later career still brought him big moments, but it was also came with a serious injury. He returned to WCW in late 1997 and was often paired with Jim Neidhart as a tag team.

At Fall Brawl 1998, they faced Disco Inferno and Alex Wright in a ring that had a hidden trap door built into it for the Ultimate Warrior’s entrance later in the show. Smith took several bumps on that spot without knowing it was there and suffered a spinal injury that led to a severe infection and months in the hospital. While he was still recovering, he was informed that WCW had ended his contract.

In 1999, he made one last return to the WWF. During this run, he had a brief reign as Hardcore Champion and took part in main event matches, including the six-pack challenge for the vacant WWF Championship at Unforgiven 1999.

By this point, his body was clearly worn down. Pain, medication issues, and personal problems limited how often he could wrestle, and his final WWF match took place in 2000. Smith’s long-term use of painkillers and steroids has been discussed in interviews and articles about his later life, and people close to him have linked that use to the toll of his injuries.

In the ring, Smith’s style mixed raw strength with well-timed bursts of speed. He was best known for the running powerslam, where he would scoop an opponent onto his shoulder, take a few steps, and drive them down chest first.

He used a delayed vertical suplex, holding an opponent straight in the air to show off his strength before falling back, and added moves like press slams, clotheslines, and various suplexes. In his earlier years, he could also hit crisp dropkicks and agile counters, which paired well with Dynamite Kid, while later runs leaned more on power and impact.

Away from the ring, Smith married Diana Hart, daughter of Stu Hart, and they had two children, including Harry Smith, who later wrestled as Davey Boy Smith Jr. for WWE and other promotions.

Davey Boy Smith died on May 18, 2002, at age 39 after suffering a heart attack while on holiday in Invermere, British Columbia. An autopsy pointed to heart disease and an enlarged heart as the primary causes, with traces of steroids and painkillers present but not at levels judged immediately fatal.

In 2020, WWE inducted him into its Hall of Fame, with his son involved in the presentation.

Davey Boy Smith is remembered for both his work as one-half of the British Bulldogs, one of the most influential tag teams of the 1980s, and his later role as a singles star who carried major matches in front of home crowds in the United Kingdom.

At his best, he showed how a wrestler from the British scene could succeed in North America and Japan while keeping elements of his original style. His career also serves as a reminder of the high physical cost of wrestling at a high level for many years.