10 Wrestlers Who Lost Gold In Their Hometown
8. The British Bulldog
“The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith was WWE’s first ever European Champion. As one of his era’s most successful foreign imports, his coronation was a logical decision, and he won the belt by pinning Owen Hart in Berlin. The belt’s longest ever reign followed (206 days), but as great as Bulldog’s run was, it couldn’t have ended in more depressing fashion.
September 1997 saw Bulldog putting his gold on the line against Shawn Michaels on English soil. Unfortunately, for everything he’d accomplished with the company, 1997 proved a disastrous year for Smith, and it started going off the rails with this particular match. HBK locked the champion in a DX-assisted Figure Four, and though he was too proud to tap in his homeland, Bulldog passed out through the pain.
This at least gave the loss a convenient asterisk, but the British crowd hated the decision. Michaels was showered with boos, and cut a scathing promo that ran not only Bulldog into the ground, but the entire Hart family. The worst thing about this match, however, is that it was widely reported that Bulldog was originally set to go over, but Michaels played backstage politician and had the outcome changed, which doesn’t sound like something he’d do at all...