Davey Boy Smith 1999 | WrestleZone Forums

Publish date: 2024-03-23
As an Englishman, Davey Boy Smith will always live fondly in my heart. The first wrestling VHS my brother and I bought, after renting loads of both WWF and WCW from the video shop, was Battle Royal at the Albert Hall, in which Davey beat the Barbarian and then won a 20-man over the top battle royal (actually quite a good one at that). Also the very first show we watched was Summerslam 1990, and, whilst Davey's visa problems prevented him from appearing on that show (as first choice replacement for Brutus Beefcake), he soon debuted and was allowed to perform strongly in the 1991 Royal Rumble match, making the final four and eliminating Mr Perfect and Rick Martel near the end. Davey was booked exactly as he should have been back then, essentially a strong man with good technical knowledge who could easily open a show, carry the mid-card or main event on the European tours. That Vince cancelled on Washington DC, his own nation's capital, where Bret Hart would have faced Shawn Michaels in a mid-card Intercontinental title match (the seeds of which were planted around Wrestlemania), to give him the MAIN EVENT at Wembley Stadium is testament to that. Unfortunately for Davey, he didn't stop the steroids in a time where Vince and the WWE were under intense legal scrutiny, and despite being promoted to defend his IC title against the Mountie at Survivor Series, and appearing on the early Royal Rumble 1993 promo posters, Davey got canned alongside Road Warrior Hawk and the Ultimare Warrior.

His subsequent brief WCW headliner run and 1994 return to WWF were moderately successful, and I enjoyed his heel work between 1995-97, where he was given prominent status in main events, title matches, the tag championships and finally the reborn Hart Foundation. I'll go against the grain though and say that his loss to Shawn Michaels at One Night Only was totally the right decision, as it furthered the heel mystique of D-generation X and is a rare example of the bigger picture being looked at in the usually short-term world of professional wrestling.

However, buying out his contract in the aftermath of Montreal meant we had sadly seen the last of the British Bulldog that we knew and loved. His back injury cut short a WCW tenure that in truth was dead on arrival due to awful booking of him, Neidhart and Bret; and though he started well enough on his WWF return, interjecting into the title picture with Triple H and the Rock, he soon faded into obscurity, his drug problems meaning that, though he was imam entrant in the 2000 Royal Rumble, he didn't make the cut for Wrestlemania 2000, an event where almost every member of the roster was given a match.

I hated the 1999-2000 Bulldog. The image change was terrible IMO. If they wanted a 'dark Bulldog', just change his colours from red, white and blue to black and white; He should never have been a heel in the UK as quite simply they would never truly boo him; his music was generic and shite. Everything about his packaging was second-class once his feud with the Rock was done after No Mercy 1999. It's a shame as, perhaps, if he had a positive mindset, if his morale was cultivated, he *might* have had the inclination to really battle his demons.

No, if I remember Davey, which I do fondly, I recall the pre-Montreal Davey, one of the greatest ever wrestlers ever to come out of England. His 9-month 1999 last run was pretty worthless, so it would be a damn shame if he got remembered more for that.

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