10 Meanest Backstage Wrestling Feuds
This business has more bad blood than a haemophiliacs convention.
You’ve all read the myriad articles out there about backstage fights, scraps, shoots and fisticuffs between people involved in the pro wrestling business. For some reason, fans of an industry based around collaboration, literally working together, can’t get enough gossip about the odd incident where wrestlers stopped working and got a little slap-happy with one another - hey, I’ve written at least one of those articles myself.
Well, this isn’t that: because if you really want gossip about things getting real between people who fake fighting for a living, then you need to know about the feuds, the stories behind the shoving contests.
After all, the show is supposed to be based around telling tales - short stories and miniature epics, great sweeping tragedy and sidesplitting comedy, pure competition and fierce grudges on the same card. That’s why we all love getting the scuttlebutt about the real issues behind the scenes - it’s like gossip after a heel turn.
With that in mind, here are ten of the meanest, nastiest feuds the business has ever seen.
10. The British Bulldog Vs. The Dynamite Kid
Born four years apart, first cousins Davey Boy Smith and Tom Billington had worked together for a while, often against one another, before they formed the partnership - The British Bulldogs - that would help to redefine tag team wrestling in the 1980s.
They grew up together, worked together, travelled together and got wasted together - and, by the time the team broke up in 1991, the Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith could not stand one another.
On the one hand, few people liked Billington. The man was a nasty, violent bully with a mean streak and a Napoleon complex, who enjoyed nothing more than baiting and beating his victims to a pulp.
And then, of course there were all the drugs. Of course, both men were on gobsmacking amounts of steroids - but then there were all the recreational substances, variously including cocaine, crack, morphine and prescription painkillers.
However, the Bulldogs properly fell apart when the future British Bulldog decided to return to the WWF to try a singles career - ie, without Billington - and pulled the team out of an upcoming tournament in All Japan Pro Wrestling by telling Shohei Baba that the Dynamite Kid had been involved in a serious car accident.
Future Bulldog? Yes, that’s right. During their illustrious tag team career, Smith worked under his given name - but as soon as they broke up, the Dynamite Kid found that his erstwhile partner had trademarked the name ‘British Bulldog’ during their final run in the WWF. Smith further fuelled his unstable cousin’s violent temper by constantly informing the promoters that Billington tried to work with that he wasn’t legally allowed to perform under the British Bulldogs name.
The years of pent-up aggression finally boiled over in 1994, when Smith booked an indie show only a few miles from Billingtons house in England. Somewhat predictably, Dynamite blew his top, turning up at the arena fully intending to hospitalise the Bulldog.
Fortunately for Smith, he had been warned that his cousin would turn up. He locked Billington out and called the police, who removed the Dynamite Kid from the premises.
The two never spoke again - Smith died of a heart attack in 2002, and Billington has been in a wheelchair and living in poverty for the last two decades.