10 Beloved Wrestlers FIRED By WWE
6. The British Bulldog
The downfall of the British Bulldog was wild in how sudden it all was.
On August 29, 1992, Bulldog captured the Intercontinental title from Bret Hart in the main event of SummerSlam. Too much is made of the novelty of the WWF promoting a major pay-per-view in the United Kingdom for the first time, and of the Sky Sports boom that facilitated it. These factors were not remotely insignificant, but they gloss over just how popular Davey Boy Smith was. He was a sensation - a genuine megastar who rarely features in that conversation.
Bret Hart might not have helped the Bulldog's reputation, inadvertently or otherwise. He became the bigger star in the aftermath, and basically cast Davey Boy as an out-of-it trash-sack he had to carry in the individual performance of his life. True as that may be - Davey had prepared for the biggest moment of his life by smoking crack for weeks - it doesn't half help the historical revisionism.
By the end of November, Bulldog was gone. The reason was disputed. At the time, Dave Meltzer wrote in the November 23 Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Davey - with whom Meltzer agreed was the "European Hulk Hogan" - didn't feel as though his push reflected his popularity, and quit. Meltzer also relayed a report that Bulldog was indeed sacked.
Bret Hart later wrote in his autobiography that Vince, under immense pressure to clean up the steroid culture within the WWF, fired Davey Boy for purchasing HGH from a dealer in England who'd just been busted.
The same thing happened to...