Post by Stu-E Price on Sept 18, 2007 17:24:10 GMT -5
MY WRESTLING CAREER
At the WWF's SummerSlam 1992, Davey was wrestling Bret for the Intercontinental Championship Belt. All 80,000 seats at Wembley Stadium in London were sold out10 hours after the event was announced. Officials at British Telecom sent out press releases stating that at one point 25,000 people simultaneously dialed the credit card ticket number. The speed of the sellout broke records previously held by Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, Elton John and Madonna.
I remember being escorted by Vince McMahon’s son, Shane, from the royal box at Wembley Stadium to the field, and being put right at ringside. The angle of the match was that my brother and husband were at odds and it was tearing the family apart.
The WWF did televised interviews all of July with our whole family. They liked mine in particular and I was front and center for the cameras at the match. I was so excited and felt like this was a real big step for me. I was not going to let anyone down. I was also a complete nervous wreck and my nervousness made it that much more convincing.
A London Daily Mirror article dated August 31 quoted me at ringside saying, “I am so worried they are going to destroy each other." No one but Vince, Bret and Davey knew who was going to win. And in a rare display of trust, Vince told Bret and Davey not to let him in on how they were going to end it. He wanted to be genuinely surprised.
It was an incredible match. My dad, who is the world's greatest judge of good wrestling, proclaimed, “I wouldn't change one iota of that match." He said that match, shown on television around the world, was a fantastic endorsement for wrestling.
The Daily Mirror article described it this way: "His beautiful wife watched helplessly and ashen-faced at ringside as the British Bulldog lay pinned to the canvas, painful defeat staring him in his sweat-streaked face. Davey Boy had dreamed for so long of wearing the gleaming golden belt of champions. He was at the mercy of the opponent he had most dreaded having to meet. The odds looked hopeless. His dream was fading fast.
"Desperately Davey Boy fought his way free, turning the tables on his opponent in a lightning sequence of brilliant moves and it was all over. The 29-year-old Bulldog had been pitted against his own brother-in-law, WWF heartthrob Bret “the Hitman" Hart.
"In a real needle match, tension gripped the family and woman torn between the giant pair, Bulldog's wife and the Hitman's sister. She sat close to tears at ringside.
"The Hitman” nonchalantly whizzed the Bulldog from one set of twanging ropes to another. All seemed lost for the Bulldog when the heartless Hitman squatted on his back in a classic Boston Crab, wrenching his legs to force him into submission. In a supreme effort, Davey Boy inched his way painfully to the edge of the ring and forced his way free. Then in a stunning set of moves, perfected by years of relentless training, he took the boastful Bret by surprise, pinned him upside down, shoulders to the mat and that was that.
"As the cheers echoed around the stadium, the Bulldog stuck out his meaty paw in friendship only to have it spurned by his broken-hearted brother-in-law. But finally the paired embraced to the screams of the crowd. Diana leaped into the ring and hugged them. A huge Union Jack waved above the Bulldog's head. Fireworks shot showers of stars into the sky. Rule Britannia thundered out of the speakers. Diana sobbed in Davey Boy's arms."
Vince was so happy with the way the match had gone, he gave Davey a big hug.
Davey was in a fog. The excitement and adrenaline left his mind a blank. I don't know if Davey was working me or not, but he said, "Did I win?"
I was hugging him and checking him over for injuries. "You were wonderful, Davey. Just wonderful."
He said, "Well I can't remember what happened in the match, I really can't. How did it look, Di? Did the fans like it?"
The fans went home delirious and I told him so. They could have watched Bret and Davey wrestle for another hour.
I saw Bret the next morning at breakfast at London's Ramada Hotel. I sat down with him for a moment. "How are you today, Bret?"
He forced a wry grin, "I feel like I got hit by a truck. How's Davey?"
"He's about the same," I told him. Bret, like my dad, is a man of few words unless he's angry.
This whole thing between Bret and Davey was a strong angle. They were set to mix it up again at Wrestlemania in the spring. But Bret never got the return match. Instead he got the WWF World Championship Belt and Davey was let go.
While in England, The Ultimate Warrior asked Davey for the name of a steroid dealer. Davey poked around, got a name and phone number for him and that was that. The Ultimate Warrior made the contact and started getting steroids sent to his house in Arizona. He was receiving delivery after delivery from England. Of course, it stuck out like a big red X when it went through customs and they confiscated the steroids at the post office.
Meanwhile Vince was under grand jury investigation. They were trying to close him down claiming he was basing his business on wrestlers who were using illegal drugs and that he was providing those drugs.
Vince said that if they were going to close him down they'd have to close down every professional sports industry. It was a real witch-hunt. He was working hard on cleaning up his wrestlers. He had them tested weekly and randomly. If their drug levels were dropping, that was acceptable, but if their levels were elevated or TCH (from marijuana) showed up in their urine, they were either fined, suspended or fired. The tests were costing Vince a fortune, but he was determined to prove he was serious about running a drug-free federation.
Vince's medical technicians actually got down on their knees to watch the wrestlers urinate into the receptacle. Otherwise some of the wrestlers would cheat. They'd have a Visine bottle full of someone else's drug free urine tucked up under their testicles. Instead of urine coming out of their penis it was coming out of the eye drops bottle. Sometimes they'd squeeze a bit of Visine into the sample to ruin it. Jim Neidhart's favorite cheat was claiming he had diarrhea so bad he couldn't take the test. If he were made to anyway, he' d make sure fecal matter landed in his sample.
Davey failed his test at the beginning of 1992. They detected Ecstasy or MDMA, a methamphetamine. Vince was concerned and warned Davey.
"If you take that stuff you will kill yourself. That is something people make in bathtubs in their garages." Davey was given six weeks off to clean up.
The Drug Enforcement Agency confronted Vince about the Ultimate Warrior's steroid deliveries. Vince denied any and all knowledge and fired Warrior immediately. Warrior assured the feds that Vince had nothing to do with his $10,000-per-week steroid habit. Then he ratted Davey out. On the advice of his legal team, Vince had Davey's job with the WWF terminated. Privately, Vince assured Davey he would bring him back when the heat cooled down.
I was just sick about it. I could not believe this.
"Vince," I was thinking. "How could you do this to Davey? How could you let him go?" Davey vehemently denied giving Warrior the phone number. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth. But after months of going over it again and again with Davey, "How did Ultimate Warrior get the steroids?" he finally broke down and admitted it.
"Well I introduced him to the guy, but I didn't know he was selling steroids," he confessed. Then a few months later he said, "Well, okay I knew the guy had steroids, but I figured since I wasn't the one using them, what did it have to do with me?"
It's such a shame because Davey may have become the World Champion. Instead they let him go and ended up putting the Belt on Bret.
Vince had Davey lose his Intercontinental title to Shawn Michaels, the Heartbreak Kid, and a week later Bret won the World Belt. He wrestled Rick Flair in Saskatoon and Vince flew my dad out for it. Davey was there and he was happy for Bret. He really felt Bret deserved the win.
We had a long battle with the WWF fighting over the rights to the British Bulldog name. Davey couldn't go anywhere else to wrestle because Vince owned it. It was in their contract. Vince had the rights—including merchandising—after Davey stopped working for him.
For two years after Davey was let go, Vince—not Davey—made a small fortune on British Bulldog bedding, wallpaper, teddy bears, videos, Super Nintendo games, running shoes, coffee cups, action figures, night clothes, boxer shorts, watches, playing cards, TV trays, birthday cards, lunch boxes, scarves, Halloween masks, calculators, t-shirts, hats, ice cream bars, foam hands, wall clocks, poster, windbreakers, umbrellas, erasers, paper dolls, slippers, pins, badges and backpacks.
There was a long, costly legal battle and it caused a lot of animosity between Vince and Davey.
Davey returned to the WCW, the rival federation to the WWF, as Davey Boy Smith. He signed a contract with Bill Watts, but he never really liked it there. It was way too cliquey and the management never treated Davey like one of their own. Instead, Eric Bischoff focused on Steve Borden aka Sting.
Steve began as Ultimate Warrior's tag-team partner back when Ultimate Warrior was the Dingo Warrior and together they were The Blade Runners. I always thought Sting was overrated. But what really got me was that Eric was having Davey beaten by Leon White aka Van Vader in violent, dangerous matches. Vader was clumsy and unskilled. I got the impression he was trying to knock Davey out cold. It reached the point where our son Harry and I couldn't even watch these matches on TV. When Davey tried to retaliate he was called on the carpet by WCW management.
"What the hell are you doing Davey? Vader is our World Champion!"
Eventually Davey and Sting tagged against Vader and Sid Eudy aka Sid Vicious. Sid and Vader would handle Sting like he was porcelain china, but when Davey stepped into the ring, they'd powerbomb him with all their might. They were destroying his health, hurting him in every match. Thankfully Davey was the best wrestler out there, and could legitimately take care of himself. He continued to be professional and do what he was told.
In February and March of 1993, the WCW sent Davey to Europe. He was a huge hit and took the WCW from 700 seats in The King's Court in London to selling out The Royal Albert hall twice in one day.
At the WWF's SummerSlam 1992, Davey was wrestling Bret for the Intercontinental Championship Belt. All 80,000 seats at Wembley Stadium in London were sold out10 hours after the event was announced. Officials at British Telecom sent out press releases stating that at one point 25,000 people simultaneously dialed the credit card ticket number. The speed of the sellout broke records previously held by Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, Elton John and Madonna.
I remember being escorted by Vince McMahon’s son, Shane, from the royal box at Wembley Stadium to the field, and being put right at ringside. The angle of the match was that my brother and husband were at odds and it was tearing the family apart.
The WWF did televised interviews all of July with our whole family. They liked mine in particular and I was front and center for the cameras at the match. I was so excited and felt like this was a real big step for me. I was not going to let anyone down. I was also a complete nervous wreck and my nervousness made it that much more convincing.
A London Daily Mirror article dated August 31 quoted me at ringside saying, “I am so worried they are going to destroy each other." No one but Vince, Bret and Davey knew who was going to win. And in a rare display of trust, Vince told Bret and Davey not to let him in on how they were going to end it. He wanted to be genuinely surprised.
It was an incredible match. My dad, who is the world's greatest judge of good wrestling, proclaimed, “I wouldn't change one iota of that match." He said that match, shown on television around the world, was a fantastic endorsement for wrestling.
The Daily Mirror article described it this way: "His beautiful wife watched helplessly and ashen-faced at ringside as the British Bulldog lay pinned to the canvas, painful defeat staring him in his sweat-streaked face. Davey Boy had dreamed for so long of wearing the gleaming golden belt of champions. He was at the mercy of the opponent he had most dreaded having to meet. The odds looked hopeless. His dream was fading fast.
"Desperately Davey Boy fought his way free, turning the tables on his opponent in a lightning sequence of brilliant moves and it was all over. The 29-year-old Bulldog had been pitted against his own brother-in-law, WWF heartthrob Bret “the Hitman" Hart.
"In a real needle match, tension gripped the family and woman torn between the giant pair, Bulldog's wife and the Hitman's sister. She sat close to tears at ringside.
"The Hitman” nonchalantly whizzed the Bulldog from one set of twanging ropes to another. All seemed lost for the Bulldog when the heartless Hitman squatted on his back in a classic Boston Crab, wrenching his legs to force him into submission. In a supreme effort, Davey Boy inched his way painfully to the edge of the ring and forced his way free. Then in a stunning set of moves, perfected by years of relentless training, he took the boastful Bret by surprise, pinned him upside down, shoulders to the mat and that was that.
"As the cheers echoed around the stadium, the Bulldog stuck out his meaty paw in friendship only to have it spurned by his broken-hearted brother-in-law. But finally the paired embraced to the screams of the crowd. Diana leaped into the ring and hugged them. A huge Union Jack waved above the Bulldog's head. Fireworks shot showers of stars into the sky. Rule Britannia thundered out of the speakers. Diana sobbed in Davey Boy's arms."
Vince was so happy with the way the match had gone, he gave Davey a big hug.
Davey was in a fog. The excitement and adrenaline left his mind a blank. I don't know if Davey was working me or not, but he said, "Did I win?"
I was hugging him and checking him over for injuries. "You were wonderful, Davey. Just wonderful."
He said, "Well I can't remember what happened in the match, I really can't. How did it look, Di? Did the fans like it?"
The fans went home delirious and I told him so. They could have watched Bret and Davey wrestle for another hour.
I saw Bret the next morning at breakfast at London's Ramada Hotel. I sat down with him for a moment. "How are you today, Bret?"
He forced a wry grin, "I feel like I got hit by a truck. How's Davey?"
"He's about the same," I told him. Bret, like my dad, is a man of few words unless he's angry.
This whole thing between Bret and Davey was a strong angle. They were set to mix it up again at Wrestlemania in the spring. But Bret never got the return match. Instead he got the WWF World Championship Belt and Davey was let go.
While in England, The Ultimate Warrior asked Davey for the name of a steroid dealer. Davey poked around, got a name and phone number for him and that was that. The Ultimate Warrior made the contact and started getting steroids sent to his house in Arizona. He was receiving delivery after delivery from England. Of course, it stuck out like a big red X when it went through customs and they confiscated the steroids at the post office.
Meanwhile Vince was under grand jury investigation. They were trying to close him down claiming he was basing his business on wrestlers who were using illegal drugs and that he was providing those drugs.
Vince said that if they were going to close him down they'd have to close down every professional sports industry. It was a real witch-hunt. He was working hard on cleaning up his wrestlers. He had them tested weekly and randomly. If their drug levels were dropping, that was acceptable, but if their levels were elevated or TCH (from marijuana) showed up in their urine, they were either fined, suspended or fired. The tests were costing Vince a fortune, but he was determined to prove he was serious about running a drug-free federation.
Vince's medical technicians actually got down on their knees to watch the wrestlers urinate into the receptacle. Otherwise some of the wrestlers would cheat. They'd have a Visine bottle full of someone else's drug free urine tucked up under their testicles. Instead of urine coming out of their penis it was coming out of the eye drops bottle. Sometimes they'd squeeze a bit of Visine into the sample to ruin it. Jim Neidhart's favorite cheat was claiming he had diarrhea so bad he couldn't take the test. If he were made to anyway, he' d make sure fecal matter landed in his sample.
Davey failed his test at the beginning of 1992. They detected Ecstasy or MDMA, a methamphetamine. Vince was concerned and warned Davey.
"If you take that stuff you will kill yourself. That is something people make in bathtubs in their garages." Davey was given six weeks off to clean up.
The Drug Enforcement Agency confronted Vince about the Ultimate Warrior's steroid deliveries. Vince denied any and all knowledge and fired Warrior immediately. Warrior assured the feds that Vince had nothing to do with his $10,000-per-week steroid habit. Then he ratted Davey out. On the advice of his legal team, Vince had Davey's job with the WWF terminated. Privately, Vince assured Davey he would bring him back when the heat cooled down.
I was just sick about it. I could not believe this.
"Vince," I was thinking. "How could you do this to Davey? How could you let him go?" Davey vehemently denied giving Warrior the phone number. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth. But after months of going over it again and again with Davey, "How did Ultimate Warrior get the steroids?" he finally broke down and admitted it.
"Well I introduced him to the guy, but I didn't know he was selling steroids," he confessed. Then a few months later he said, "Well, okay I knew the guy had steroids, but I figured since I wasn't the one using them, what did it have to do with me?"
It's such a shame because Davey may have become the World Champion. Instead they let him go and ended up putting the Belt on Bret.
Vince had Davey lose his Intercontinental title to Shawn Michaels, the Heartbreak Kid, and a week later Bret won the World Belt. He wrestled Rick Flair in Saskatoon and Vince flew my dad out for it. Davey was there and he was happy for Bret. He really felt Bret deserved the win.
We had a long battle with the WWF fighting over the rights to the British Bulldog name. Davey couldn't go anywhere else to wrestle because Vince owned it. It was in their contract. Vince had the rights—including merchandising—after Davey stopped working for him.
For two years after Davey was let go, Vince—not Davey—made a small fortune on British Bulldog bedding, wallpaper, teddy bears, videos, Super Nintendo games, running shoes, coffee cups, action figures, night clothes, boxer shorts, watches, playing cards, TV trays, birthday cards, lunch boxes, scarves, Halloween masks, calculators, t-shirts, hats, ice cream bars, foam hands, wall clocks, poster, windbreakers, umbrellas, erasers, paper dolls, slippers, pins, badges and backpacks.
There was a long, costly legal battle and it caused a lot of animosity between Vince and Davey.
Davey returned to the WCW, the rival federation to the WWF, as Davey Boy Smith. He signed a contract with Bill Watts, but he never really liked it there. It was way too cliquey and the management never treated Davey like one of their own. Instead, Eric Bischoff focused on Steve Borden aka Sting.
Steve began as Ultimate Warrior's tag-team partner back when Ultimate Warrior was the Dingo Warrior and together they were The Blade Runners. I always thought Sting was overrated. But what really got me was that Eric was having Davey beaten by Leon White aka Van Vader in violent, dangerous matches. Vader was clumsy and unskilled. I got the impression he was trying to knock Davey out cold. It reached the point where our son Harry and I couldn't even watch these matches on TV. When Davey tried to retaliate he was called on the carpet by WCW management.
"What the hell are you doing Davey? Vader is our World Champion!"
Eventually Davey and Sting tagged against Vader and Sid Eudy aka Sid Vicious. Sid and Vader would handle Sting like he was porcelain china, but when Davey stepped into the ring, they'd powerbomb him with all their might. They were destroying his health, hurting him in every match. Thankfully Davey was the best wrestler out there, and could legitimately take care of himself. He continued to be professional and do what he was told.
In February and March of 1993, the WCW sent Davey to Europe. He was a huge hit and took the WCW from 700 seats in The King's Court in London to selling out The Royal Albert hall twice in one day.