British Bulldogs
| The British Bulldogs | |
|---|---|
| Tag team | |
| Members |
Davey Boy Smith Dynamite Kid Matilda (bulldog) |
| Heights | Davey Boy: 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) Dynamite: 1.72 m (5 ft 8 in) |
| Combined weight |
218 kg (481 lb) |
| Billed from | Leeds, England |
| Debut | 1983 |
| Disbanded | 1990 |
| Promotions | WWF Stampede NJPW AJPW |
The British Bulldogs were a professional wrestling tag-team consisting of cousins Davey Boy Smith and the Dynamite Kid (Tom Billington). They competed throughout 1980s in North America, Britain, and Japan and are consistently ranked among the top tag teams in history.
Tom Billington (Dynamite Kid) and David Smith (Davey Boy Smith) were cousins from the Lancashire town of Wigan in the United Kingdom. Tom's father was the brother of Davey Boy's mother. In the 1970s, the Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith both began their careers in Britain. The two were soon invited to join Stampede Wrestling in Canada by talent scout Bruce Hart. The Dynamite Kid went to Canada first and made a revolutionary impact in Stampede with his effortlessly fluid technical wrestling style, and had a fiery feud with his future brother-in-law, Bret Hart. Davey Boy Smith came to Stampede in the early 1980s. During their time together in Stampede, Dynamite and Davey Boy began a heated feud as Dynamite provoked Smith by saying he was a test-tube baby.
The Dynamite / Davey Boy feud would continue in New Japan Pro Wrestling, where they became involved in a three way feud that also involved The Cobra over the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship. After they settled the feud, the two started to team as the British Bulldogs both in NJPW and Stampede Wrestling. In March 1984, the Bulldogs would win the Stampede International Tag Team Championship for the first time. In 1984, the two left NJPW to go to its bitter rival All Japan Pro Wrestling, effectively severing all ties to New Japan to this day.
In 1984, Vince McMahon bought out Stampede Wrestling. The buyout meant that the British Bulldogs joined the World Wrestling Federation along with Smith’s brother-in-law Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart (The Hart Foundation). Initially the Bulldogs still toured with AJPW, but soon after they became WWF-exclusive. Although the two British stars primarily wrestled against each other in Stampede Wrestling, with Billington as a villain and Smith as a hero, WWF owner Vince McMahon decided to make them only as a tag team.
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