Steven Bell Talks Dynamite & Davey
The British Bulldogs’ biography is set for release on April 4, 2022.
The day after WrestleMania 38 will be a celebration for the United Kingdom, as the British Bulldogs will finally receive the deep dive they deserve in “Dynamite & Davey.”
Author Steven Bell, a longtime wrestling fan and student of the game, has spent the past year putting this biography together. In this exclusive interview, we learn how this book came together, his thoughts on the Dark Side of the Ring episode and his match recommendations to truly appreciate the Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith.
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How long have you been a pro wrestling fan?
Steven Bell: “Like most people, especially here in the U.K., my wrestling fandom has been cyclical. I was born in 1985 during the golden era, which is when I first came across Davey – the British Bulldog, as he was known at the time. Growing up in the early ‘90s, I was a big fan of all the usuals, like Bret Hart. I dropped out of wrestling during my formative years, and then got back into it during the Attitude Era. Being a teenager at the time, what more could you want? I was a big fan of The Rock and Stone Cold.
Davey was still around at that time. By that point, I became geographically and socially aware that Davey was from just up the road from me from a sort of similar Northern English mining town. We have a similar background and heritage, so I looked more into his career. And then by reading Mick Foley’s books, Bret Hart’s book and wrestling history books, I became fascinated with the culture. I started to piece the whole story together of not just Davey, but Dynamite as well. I really got sucked into Dynamite’s story, which is so fantastic and explosive.
So, I’ve been a wrestling fan on and off for most of my life. I’m a little bit off if I’m honest for a minute about the current product.”
What was pro wrestling like in the U.K. at the time?
Steven Bell: “The program that became famous was World of Sport, which was on the TV channel ITV. It was on every Sunday afternoon on prime-time TV during the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. It covered football, rugby, horse racing and right in the middle, there’d be an hour of wrestling on there. Obviously, that created many stars, such as Big Daddy. Both Dynamite and Davey broke into the business in that form.”
So, you became a fan of the British Bulldogs through WWE, not necessarily World of Sport?
Steven Bell: “Yes. I worked backwards from there. Davey was this national superstar. Wearing the Union Jack colors, you couldn’t help but be soaked in. He was our Hulk Hogan. I studied the history of he and Dynamite, going back to the late ‘70s when they were skinny kids on World of Sport. There were 10, 12 million viewers some weeks. They had barely any meat on the bones, but what a brilliant way for them to get into the business.”
My fourth baby; third one published by @PitchPublishing. T-minus 8 months.
— Steven Bell (@steven_bell1985) July 6, 2021
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Let’s talk about your background as a writer. You’ve been a published author even before Dynamite & Davey, right?
Steven Bell: “Yeah, this will be my third published book. I’m a huge football/soccer fan, as well, and went to Brazil for the World Cup in 2014. I was there for six weeks and came back with a lot of stories to tell. I had a fantastic time, but didn’t really think anything else of it.
A couple years later, there was the Brazilian Chapecoense football team plane crash. Most of them team died, about 70 people aboard the plane died as they were on their way to the biggest night of their lives. I’ve come to know a lot about Brazilian football, so it hit me harder than it hit everybody else over here in the U.K. It didn’t really make any big news over here, which I thought was scandalous. It’s like we just turned a blind eye to this tragedy, but also, as I dug deeper, it was this amazing sports story of a club that over 10 years went from rags to riches. That ended up being my first book with Pitch Publishing, which is the U.K.’s biggest sports book publisher.
In my town, we have a local historic hero – who not much has been written about – named Douglas Clark. He was a war hero, one of the pioneers of rugby league in this country and when he retired, even though he had all these war injuries, he got into professional wrestling. He was the U.K.’s first world heavyweight champion in the 1930s. I wrote his biography with help from some of his surviving family. On Remembrance Day, the national newspapers ran with my book and Douglas Clark’s story as the lead for the day.
With the Douglas Clark book doing so well, getting so much praise and attention on that kind of scale, I figured I’m in the position to do Dynamite & Davey now. I started the book last November and Pitch Publishing jumped at the opportunity. I’ve had so many of the family contributing and it’s ended up bigger and better than I ever dreamt it would be.”
Congratulations, that’s great the family got on board. Did you see the Dark Side of the Ring episode on Dynamite?
Steven Bell: “It’s funny. By January, the contract was signed to deliver Dynamite & Davey. Within weeks, the WWE Icons documentary on Davey was announced and the Dark Side of the Ring on Dynamite was announced. It was so odd because when I decided to write the book in November, it felt like nothing really had been done, especially on Dynamite, for so long. My first thought was, ‘oh no, someone is going to beat me to it.’ But Dark Side barely scratched the surface. There’s only so much you can do in 40 minutes. They did a fantastic job, though.
The episodes that leave you with answers rather than questions tend to be about an event or a certain aspect. The Bruiser Brody episode gave you a feel for him as a person and a wrestler. But the 40-minute episode really focused on the tragedy of his death. Same with the Owen Hart episode. Whereas the Dynamite one tried to cover his whole career in 40 minutes, which left a lot of people with more questions than answers. I kept an eye on Twitter the next day, and people asked ‘Why didn’t they have so-and-so on? Why didn’t they have this member of the Hart family on? Why didn’t they mention this or that?’
That made me realize these documentaries will whet people’s appetite for a 500-page book.”
I know John Lister wrote a book about the U.K. scene, which spotlighted Dynamite and Davey. But even if WWE ever releases its Davey Boy Smith documentary, your book will be the first deep dive into the British Bulldogs.
Steven Bell: “Every time I read a book that features them, like Bret’s or Bruce Hart’s or Tom’s, or see a show or documentary, I find myself digging deeper and doing a little bit of internet research. Over the years, I’ve built this picture in my mind and I can’t believe it’s never been done. It’s me being in the right place at the right time as my writing career has taken off as it has, but we’re also at the point in time where people feel comfortable talking about the controversial side of their lives. The wrestling world is just ready for this book, yeah?”
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— Steven Bell (@steven_bell1985) October 31, 2021
Absolutely. For fans who didn’t get to see Davey & Dynamite in their prime, which matches would you recommend?
Steven Bell: “Their matches in Japan are some of the best wrestling you’ll ever see. They felt liberated and creative in Japan. Tom, especially, because the gaijin is expected to adopt the heel persona while the local plays the babyface. That liberated Tom because he wasn’t the most comfortable on the mic, and he wasn’t expected to be with it being a foreign language. He was just expected to be this heel character. It was phenomenal and groundbreaking.
And then he came across Satoru Sayama. As Tiger Mask, he and Tom blew the roof off the whole business with a series of matches over the course of a few years. Quite famously, they earned Dave Meltzer’s first five-star match. Davey Boy followed with the same style, the same background, the same trainer. He just had a bit more size. What many people don’t understand about Davey is that he’s always been strong. It’s not just in the ‘90s when he was this big, huge powerhouse. In the ‘80s, even when he was so athletic, he was still the powerhouse of the pair.
Some of their Stampede matches are still available. Between 1982 and 1984, Davey Boy was in Stampede as a babyface while Dynamite was the top heel. When you watch their matches against each other, they almost had a telepathic understanding of each other. Tom also had some amazing matches with Bret in Stampede that aren’t particularly known or well seen because of all they’d accomplish later on.
My favorite event is In Your House: Canadian Stampede. As I’ve become more in tune with the characters while writing this book, you can see when they all stand on stage, basking in one of the most emotional reactions, you can see how emotional they all are. It makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck as I talk about it right now. As they’re reading the book, I would love for people to be inspired to go back and watch these events.”
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