I'll miss you, Davey
By BRET HART -- For SLAM! Wrestling
BRITISH BULLDOG GAVE THE HITMAN A LIFETIME OF PRICELESS MEMORIES
The tragedy of life is not that we die but what dies inside a man
while he lives.
Davey Boy Smith had his share of demons and there are so many things that
need to be said about how and why he died. Now is not the time.
Another dead brother.
I'm so angry. Yet I'm more sad than anything else.
I took Davey in to live with me when he first arrived here from England. I
doted over him like a son, as did my girlfriend, Julie, who I later married.
Back then, Davey was just a skinny, 17-year-old kid with sparkling eyes and
a dimpled smile. He was always naive and innocent but that was more of a good
quality.
He had a gentle side and yet there was an unstoppable determination about
him. He was a fierce fighter -- and I know from the countless times when we
were younger and had to fight back to back. I can tell you how great it was to
have him on my side.
He was a strong and quick with amazing balance. I can remember him playing
touch football at my dad's house with the Hart brothers. Nobody could take him
off his feet. He was such a sweet kid then. Diana snared him fast and it was
no surprise to any of us Harts that he was destined to join the family.
So many memories.
I remember being in Vancouver with Davey in a bar where he kept asking me
with that innocence if I smelled something funny. I sniffed and said,
'Something stinks ....' A few minutes later, he pulled this soft marble out of
one of the many pockets in his painter pants. Together, we squinted at it in
the dimply lit bar ... until we saw it squinting back!
Jim Neidhart had stuffed fish eyes in all of Davey's pockets.
Needless to say, Davey got even later that night when he took Jim's toilet
bag and crammed it full of fish heads. Poor Jim was off for a few weeks and
you can only imagine what it was like when he opened it. I can picture Jim's
twisted-up face and Davey's big smile.
I remember convincing a young Davey that Calgary had a cat pound -- that
there was a cat detective van just down the street that had all sorts of
aerials on it. I'd be fighting to hold back laughter as Davey would climb up
the big tree in my back yard and haul my annoyed cat down and bring him inside
the house.
I remember a time in Kuwait, in 1997, when Davey, Owen and I all went
fishing on a big boat. Only Davey got a bite, fiercely fighting it for over 90
minutes, with Owen and me jumping around and everyone, even the Arab
fisherman, trying to help him bring it in. I remember Davey with a big smile
on his face, posing with the two-ft. long yellow tiger shark. The shark had
such fight that Davey had them toss it back in. He didn't have the heart to
hurt such a noble adversary.
I remember wrestling Davey in my Stampede Wrestling days, in particular in
Regina, where we had a babyface match. We wrestled for an hour with fans all
standing, leaning on the apron, pounding their hands on the mat, in what was
one of the greatest matches we ever had. This led to my idea of wrestling
Davey at SummerSlam '92 for the WWF. When Vince McMahon asked me if I was sure
we could carry the responsibility of being the last match in front of 83,000
people, I guaranteed him nobody would top us. Nobody did.
It's my favourite match of all time. I remember it like it was yesterday.
The English fans with that soccer chant, "Bull - dog! Bull- dog!" Lennox
Lewis waving the Union Jack. Thirty-seven minutes later in a match that Ric
Flair and Randy Savage told me was the greatest match of all time, Davey won
the Intercontinental Championship -- and nobody was more proud of him than me!
Ah, so many matches. The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and The Dynamite
Kid) and the Hart Foundation (me and Jim Neidhart) back in the late '80s.
Never before or after has there been so much heart in the ring at the same
time.
I once said of Owen, Davey, Pillman and Neidhart that I'd trust them to
breathe for me. To pump my blood with their hearts.
Dynamite, home in England, confined to a wheelchair, broken and bitter.
Brian Pillman. Owen. Now Davey. All gone.
Jim and I started out as the original Hart Foundation and now we're the
only ones left. It's too sad for me to put into words.
I loved Davey like a brother. I loved them all. And I miss them every day.
