Davey Boy’s look saw him interviewed in the Telegraph Magazine’s “Men Who Wear Tights” feature, alongside other professional tights-wearers, including Danny La Rue and RT Hon Bernard Weatherill. “People like my gear and my hair, it makes me different from everyone else,” he told the magazine. “Certainly, no one has ever made fun of me.”

“The London press loved him,” says Martin Goldsmith. “Whenever he came back home, they were there. Any snippet of a story, they published it. Being a Brit was highly important… He helped sell a lot of tickets. Especially up north.”

In the United States, the WWF’s popularity was on the decline. Its family friendly image was rocked by several bad headlines – most notably a steroids scandal. The UK suddenly became its hottest market. According to Georgia, it was Davey Boy who suggested holding SummerSlam in England on the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Davey Boy would face Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Championship at Wembley Stadium, a battle of brothers-in-law, with Diana – Davey’s wife and Bret’s sister – caught in the middle. The fictitious family feud was covered by the British press.

Davey Boy – who served a suspension for steroids earlier that year – contracted a crippling staph infection in his knee. “He was in bed a lot,” recalls Georgia, almost five years old at the time. “I remember being that age and thinking, ‘I don’t know how he’s gonna do this match.’” The event sold 60,000 tickets in a single day and drew around 80,000 in total – one of the WWF’s biggest ever crowds. It also made £1.3 million in merchandise – a record at the time. Much of it was British Bulldog-branded.

The match – in wrestling terms – was a masterpiece. Fans who were there describe a once-in-a-lifetime atmosphere at Wembley – never experienced before or since. “We soaked up the atmosphere,” says Martin Goldsmith. “Most of the time I was standing there with my mouth open. I could not believe what I was watching. It was the biggest main event you could possibly have. The audience were crazy for it.”

Bret Hart’s 2007 autobiography, Hitman, made a damning claim: that Davey Boy had been smoking crack for weeks beforehand, and was in such a state that he forgot the pre-planned routines once they got in the ring. Georgia refutes the story. “I know what I saw and what I experienced, and what the whole world and the fans saw,” Georgia says. “I had never heard that story until after his book came out… My dad doesn’t deserve that. That was the biggest moment in his career and if somebody wants to try and take it away from him, that’s really sad. Especially when the person’s not alive to say their side of the story.”

Watching the match now, it’s hard to believe he was that out of it. Davey Boy is explosive and up to speed – the performance is simply too good.

Davey Boy’s celebrity in the UK continued. He appeared on Gamesmaster – shilling the new WWF video game – and the Saturday night gameshow, You Bet, hosted by Matthew Kelly. Davey Boy surprised a young winner – a stunned, gawky 13-year-old from Bath – with the new British Bulldog VHS. Davey also joined other wrestlers on the novelty single Slam Jam, produced by Mike Stock, Peter Waterman, and Simon Cowell (Cowell, of course, being a long-time maestro of the cash-in single). Davey recorded the classic line: “I’m the British Bulldog, and you’re going down!”

By the time Slam Jam hit the charts in November 1992, Davey Boy was fired from the WWF – part of an ongoing crackdown on performance-enhancing substances. Davey Boy joined rival wrestling promotion WCW, which then sold-out UK arenas on the strength of Davey’s star muscle. Davey’s defection whipped up significant publicity, with a Daily Mirror running a rolling exclusive on his life story – while also giving away a free Davey Boy-endorsed Burger King.

Later that year, Smith was involved in an altercation at a Calgary nightclub, when a drunk student named Kody Light made a drunken pass at Diana. Davey put the 20-year-old in a headlock and walked him to the bouncer, but Light fell and hit his head, causing a permanent brain injury. Tried for aggravated assault, Davey faced 14 years in prison. He had to admit on the stand that “every single thing in wrestling is fake”. The revelation was front page news at the time. Smith was acquitted, but the stress and cost took its toll. Going to trial in 1996, the case had hung over Smith for three years. “It affected him in so many ways,” says Georgia. “I know who Davey Boy Smith was. He wasn’t some kind of trouble maker. He didn’t deserve that bad rap.”

Now back in the WWF, Davey Boy played a top bad guy and was crowned European Champion. The fame could be intense: “Sometimes he would say, ‘I just want to be David Smith,’” recalls Georgia. “I remember going to the mall and people waiting for him in the restrooms – outside the stalls.”

Reports of Davey Boy’s drug use go back to the 1980s – particularly painkillers, a common addiction in wrestling at the time. But, according to Georgia, Davey Boy’s real demons didn’t take hold until the late 1990s, after a series of family tragedies. His sister, Tracey, who was born with brain cancer, and then his mother, Joyce, both died. And his brother-in-law, Owen Hart, died in the ring at a WWF event, plummeting from the rafters in a stunt gone wrong.

Back with WCW again, Davey looked like a physical wreck – a bloated, broken-down shadow of the former Bulldog. In 1998, he fractured his spine after being slammed on a trap door that was rigged beneath the ring mat. He later contracted a dangerous staph infection in his spine, which risked paralysis or death, and put him in a full body cast.

Overcoming the injury, he returned to the WWF for one final run, wrestling the at-his-peak Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. But the comeback was short-lived. Davey Boy’s final years were marred by him spiralling into darkness: addiction and rehabs, a near-fatal motorcycle accident, and well-publicised arrests for making threats against Diana and Hart family members. Preparing for another comeback, Davey teamed with his son, Harry Smith, who’s still a wrestler. Davey Boy died on May 18 2002. The verdict was natural causes – a post-mortem discovered an enlarged heart.

Georgia Smith has been working to successfully reclaim his legacy. She has launched a petition to get Davey Boy Smith’s name added to the Wigan Walk of Fame and is campaigning to get a blue plaque recognising him in Golborne. Last year, he was finally inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

“I don’t care what anybody says,” she says. “He was the biggest British wrestling star of all time.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainm...f85aa512482f1c