Watching his Young David matches now, it’s remarkable how slight Smith was – a pale, skinny, almost gaunt lad – half the man he’d later become. Seemingly insecure, he hid his physique under a vest.

Smith followed the Dynamite Kid to Calgary, Canada, where he wrestled for a promotion owned by the Harts, a famous Canadian wrestling family. Smith met and eventually married Diana Hart. Diana’s brother, Bret Hart, remembered Davey Boy as “a shy, skinny, simple-hearted kid with big dimples”. Davey looked up to his cousin, though Dynamite had a reputation as a behind-the-scenes prankster with a nasty streak.

The cousins travelled to Japan, where they formed a tag team. They were a hit on primetime TV, at a time when Japanese wrestling scored big TV ratings. Davey was a solo star in Japan, too. Following Dynamite’s style and move-set, Davey Boy was fast, instinctive, and immensely powerful in his own right.

Joining the WWF in 1985, they were renamed the British Bulldogs and came to the ring with an actual bulldog. Led by chairman Vince McMahon and beefed-up champ Hulk Hogan, the WWF was in the process of a national expansion in the US – a smash-hit, cartoonish TV product that tapped into Reagan-era Americana.

American wrestling was also fully-pumped on steroids. Davey, naturally strong, was introduced to steroids by Billington. In his early 1990s pomp, Davey was billed at 270lbs – an incredible amount of muscle to carry on a 5’11”, naturally slender frame. At one point, he was involved in a serious car crash. He required 100-plus stitches in his head, but his giant neck muscles likely saved his life. Davey was also suffering from back problems. Pain pills and muscle relaxants were endemic in wrestling, which – back in those days – demanded that its wrestlers were on the road 300 days per year and performed through injuries.

The Bulldogs left the WWF on bad terms, but Davey decided to return as a solo wrestler. That’s where the big money was. Dynamite Kid – who refused to return out of pride – was bitter at the supposed betrayal. They never spoke or saw each other again. The split, explains Georgia Smith, weighed on Davey Boy. “It’s too bad they passed away and could never make amends,” she says. Billington’s big bumping, frenetic style was influential – it also did irreparable damage to his back and put him in a wheelchair by his thirties. He died in 2018.

Returning to the WWF in late 1990 – now billed as ‘The British Bulldog’ – Davey Boy cut a superhero-like figure: long braided hair extensions, a Union Jack cape, and giant muscles. In 1991, with the wrestling craze in full swing, the WWF toured UK arenas. Davey Boy Smith featured prominently. He headlined the Royal Albert Hall, winning a battle royal, a match with 20 men packed into the ring at once, all attempting to throw each other over the top rope. Davey Boy was the last man standing, with the rousing sound of Rule Britannia filling the Royal Albert Hall.

The Times took notice of the WWF’s rampant success and attended a show. “Whatever happened to wrestlers like Mick McManus and Jackie Pallo?” wrote the reporter, generally bemused by the amped-up silliness. WWF wrestlers, said The Times, “look like they were fed steroids from birth”. The article noted that the WWF had sold 12,000 tickets for Wembley Arena in under an hour – the venue's fastest ever sell-out, beating Madonna and New Kids on the Block – and that WWF Magazine, which then featured Davey Boy on the cover, sold 200,000 copies per month.

Events promoter Martin Goldsmith was responsible for bringing live WWF shows to the UK and for licensing merchandise. “Every high-street group had WWF merchandise,” he says. “It was there in your face. Davey was the poster boy.”

In some ways, Davey Boy Smith was an unlikely celebrity. Though highly proficient in the wrestling ring, he was not a natural trash-talker – a wrestling skill as crucial as any submission hold. But there was an endearing awkwardness to the Wigan accent, always a joy on the extremely-American WWF TV.

Like any superstar, Davey Boy Smith’s success was an intangible charisma: the right man for the right moment. “It was of its time – a pop culture phenomenon,” says Steven Bell. “I think his look has a lot to do with it – draped in the Union Jack, the braided hair, the muscles, the larger-than-life almost superhero look, and having the dog with him. He was aimed at children of that generation. It was the perfect package. I think it’s also the fact that it was built around Britishness.”