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British Bulldog Tribute Monday, May 20, 2002 Family stunned by sudden
death Bulldog began as a pup By MICHAEL WOOD, Calgary Sun Long before his reign as a British Bulldog, David Smith was a small lad chasing big dreams across the English countryside. "He always wanted to be a wrestler, always," Sid Smith, the father of Davey Boy, told the Sun from his England home. Not quite the 5-ft.-11, 260-lb. grappling machine he would become, Davey Boy was 10 years old when he began wrestling in his home town of Golborne near Warrington, England, where he lived with his parents, a brother and two sisters. In the years to come he would work his way across England, Wales and Scotland, wrestling wherever he could with his cousin Tom Billington. It was at the age of 18 he followed Billington to Calgary at the urging of Bruce Hart, then a grappler with Calgary Stampede Wrestling. David Smith became Davey Boy Smith, and Billington would take the moniker of Dynamite Kid. Together they would form the British Bulldogs, and prove shortly thereafter that Stu Hart's circuit simply wasn't big enough to hold either of them. In 1985, after several successful stints in Japan and fresh from wedding Stu's daughter Diana, Davey Boy headed for the big show -- then called the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment.) On April 7, 1986 they beat the Dream Team of Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake taking with them the WWF tag title for their one and only time. They would lose it months later to Jim Neidhart and Bret "The Hitman" Hart, Davey's brother-in-law. The constant pounding on Dynamite Kid took its toll on his body, and then a car accident robbed him of his career. The cousins separated in a bitter public display before Davey Boy struck out on his own, both in WCW and the WWF. He reigned as Intercontinental Championship from Aug. 29, 1992 to Oct. 27, 1992, winning the belt in the legendary 'Battle of The Brothers-In-Law' from Bret Hart in London's Wembley Stadium -- a match Bret said he considered his most memorable. A sell-out 83,000 tickets flew off the counters in a record-setting 11 hours. "It's probably one of the best-known matches ever," Davey Boy's estranged wife Diana said yesterday. "That was his highlight." He would wrestle on through the '90s, both for WWF and WCW until a twist of events would launch him into a pit of drug addiction and despair that would take years to overcome. In the ring he suffered a serious blow, after a slam into a metal trap door nearly destroyed his back. Outside the ring, Davey's sister Tracy lost a battle with liver cancer. Three months later, his mother Joyce would fall to the same disease. "He was never the same after that" his father said. To cope with the pain from his back injury, Davey Boy took morphine. Soon, he became an addict, and it was in that time he and Diana separated. His troubles would follow him to court, where he would find himself facing charges of death threats, first against his estranged wife and her sister Ellie, then Bruce Hart, the estranged husband of Davey's new girlfriend Andrea. Recently, Davey Boy's life began taking a turn for the better and plans of marriage and moving out to the country were being tossed around, his girlfriend Andrea said yesterday. And together with his son, Harry, 15, Davey Boy was working hard to restart his stalled career by becoming the first father-son tag team. The duo grappled the first time in Winnipeg eight days ago. "We had so much planned," Andrea said. Source: Calgary News Brother like no other By BRET HART -- For SLAM! Wrestling My brother Owen would have turned 37 last Tuesday. I think about Owen every single day but on his birthday, I was especially reminiscent. I thought I'd share some memories with those of you who knew Owen well and even those who would have liked to have known him better. They're simple little stories, really. Just snippets that pop up in my mind. My dad would receive wrestling programs in the mail from all over the world and when he was four or five years old, Owen loved to look at the pictures. This one wrestler, Bull Ramos (a one-time tag partner of Jimmy Snuka), scared the heck out of him. When Owen wouldn't go to sleep at night, mom or dad would pick up the phone in the office pretending to call Bull Ramos. Us kids would go along with it: "Uh, oh, Bull Ramos is coming." Owen would immediately crawl under the covers. One time, Owen and I were on our way home after a long WWF tour. When we landed in Salt Lake City to make our connection, they were in the process of closing the airport because of a snowstorm. We only had three days off before another long tour and we didn't plan to spend them stranded, so we hopped the last plane out, which happened to be going to Los Angeles, where we hoped to get a connection home. When we got to L.A., it turned out we had to wait all afternoon for a connecting flight, so we went over to one of my favourite hangouts, Pepe's Bowling Alley. Overtired and bored, Owen and I were giddy enough to challenge each other to our own personal two-out-of-three bowling match. This, despite the fact neither of us had ever bowled before, except maybe in high school. Game 1, I beat him by one point. In Game 2, he beat me by one. Game 3 turned into a serious grudge match, with both of us bowling our hearts out. The adrenaline was really pumping but Game 3 ended in a tie -- and we had to run back to the airport to catch our flight home -- so we never did get a clear decision in the Pepe's layover challenge. Owen and I flew together often. Usually, we'd both sleep for most of the flight and when we'd wake we'd have delightful conversations about anything and everything. No matter how tired we were, I'd turn to him and go, "Remember that time with Davey" and we'd crack up laughing about this one rib we'd played on our brother-in-law, the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith. In those days, back in the Spring of '92, Owen and I weren't accustomed to flying first class. It was before my first WWF world championship reign, in fact I was intercontinental champion at the time. The last night of the tour was in Niagara Falls, Ont., and all the boys were eager to get home for a three-day break. For Owen, Davey and I, flying home to Calgary from the east too often meant losing almost the whole day in transit, so instead of leaving in the morning, we were eager to try and catch the last flight out of Toronto after the show that night. Well, Owen and I would be on late in the card and the chances were slim we'd make it. Davey Boy was on early and was having a good time rubbing it in, to the point where we didn't find it funny anymore because we really, really wanted to get home. At the end of the night, Owen and I made a mad dash to the airport, arriving 10 minutes before takeoff. The counter crew recognized me and we were grateful they bent over backwards to get us on that plane. We sprinted to the gate and made the flight just as they were closing the gateway door. We were delighted to find they'd taken it upon themselves to upgrade us to first class. About a half hour into the flight, a steward mentioned, "I think there's another wrestler on this plane." Feigning surprise, Owen said, "Really? Who can that be?" He went through the motions of peeking through the curtain into the crowded coach cabin, cringed and said, "Oh, no, not that guy! It's not that we don't like him but he's just a wrester wannabe. He bothers us for favours all the time." The steward asked, "What should I do if that guy comes up here?" I replied we'd talk to him for a couple of minutes but if he started to be a pest, I'd give a signal -- pulling my earlobe -- and then he'd have to get him back into his seat. Owen later walked down the aisle to use the bathroom. On the way back, he invited Davey to come sit with us. Davey sauntered into first class and made himself comfortable on the chair in front of us. The steward bristled, eager to keep his promise to toss Davey out. After a few minutes, I pulled my ear and he politely asked Davey to return to his seat. "In a minute," Davey replied, and didn't budge. A couple of minutes later, the same thing happened again. Seeing the steward was becoming uneasy, Owen and I were now pulling our ears like crazy. Davey sensed something funny might be going on but he couldn't quite figure out what we were up to. Finally, the steward summoned all his courage and forcefully instructed the big Bulldog, "Sir, you must return to your seat immediately!" For the rest of the flight, Davey sat with his arms folded across his chest, squashed in his coach seat wearing a scowl. Owen, I thought you'd like to know, you still make us laugh. Thanks. |
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