The British Bulldog’s Basic Body Builder

There’s a channel on YouTube that’s run by either Harry or Georgia Smith (or both) that I may have to dip into at some point in the future that acts as an archive of their late father’s (Davey Boy Smith) matches. I’m going to do a quickie review of this one, which is a workout video put out in the late nineties seemingly before the Bulldog jumped to WCW given how he looks. Co-hosting it is his wife, Diana. A list of the exercises for the musclehead readers, some commentary for the Bulldog fans.

Immediately notable is how slim/cut Davey is here, plus Diana is very monotone and blinks a lot. On the upside for Davey, Diana feels him up a lot. They’ve broken it down into three days:

• Day 1 – Chest & Triceps
• Day 2- Back & Biceps
• Day 3 – Shoulders & Legs

For day 1, it’s cable crossovers (8/7 reps high/low), flat dumbbell press, incline barbell press (4×12-15), incline dumbbell flys, pec dec flys (light weight to failure), then tricep pushdowns (10 narrow, 10 shoulder width, 10 narrow), nosebreakers (I think Terry Taylor used to do that), lying tricep dumbbell press, reverse grip tricep pushdowns, tricep rope extension (4x 15).

Day 2, it’s back lat pulldowns (the source of his famous lat spread – 4×10), front lat pulldowns (4×10 or 4×15 at lighter weights), close grip lat pulldowns (4×10 again), one arm dumbbell row (guess how many), straight arm pulldowns, then standing dumbbell curls (which Diana sits to do, because she doesn’t like to cheat as she’s “a painfully honest person!”), twenty ones (seven from waist to chest, seven from chin to midsection, then seven from waist to chin, three times over), preacher bench curls, standing cable curls.

Day 3, leg extensions to warm up, squats with the bar, leg press, lunges, horizontal leg curls, seated calf raises (alternating where your toes go, from neutral to outward to inward for 30), standing calf raises, then press behind the neck, shoulder lat raises, bent over dumbbell lat raises, upright barbell row (which works out the “trapeze (sic) muscle” according to Davey), barbell shrug (listed as dumbbell shrug on the video).

There are a few bits that could be taken out of context for a mucky movie:

• Diana on Davey’s triceps: “They’re so hard. They’re HUGE!”
• On the spaces between his lat muscles: “You’ve got a really nice Christmas tree, Davey!”
• Davey having a wardrobe adjustment: “Let me let Diana pull my shorts down here.”

Between the segments there are some old clips of Davey wrestling, from young to then recent, and talking about his life. He was into bodybuilding first, wrestling second. Dynamite Kid got him into wrestling so he didn’t get into trouble (just a different kind of trouble, I guess). His trainer was really strict, like Mickey from Rocky. He was wrestling at 15 and working as a paperboy and delivering fruit to pay for his training. At 17, he was in Stampede, then onto Japan.

On the other hand, Diana was 15 when she started training at BJ’s gym (BJ Annis, dad of Teddy Hart) so she could get better at sports. She started training with him when he was in a car accident in 1989 (where he got his forehead scars from). This led to her entering a bodybuilding contest that she wouldn’t have had the nerve to before.

Davey was warned to keep away from the promoter’s daughters, but Diana pursued him because of his accent and looks. She contrived to meet up with him by delivering his wages and he was nice to her and it went from there. They struggle being apart because of his travel schedule, but make up for it by working out together when they can. Diana would like to see son Harry wrestle or be a lawyer or chiropractor (wrestling won out). Daughter Georgia could be a model or singer, but Davey doesn’t want her wrestling (and she didn’t).

Diana talks about her parents being role models for her (!) plus her sister Georgia, where I guess is where her daughter gets her name from, whereas it’s more Arnie and Sly Stallone for Davey. Davey talks about how wrestling is all he knows and all he ever will do, which was true, but sounds sad. Diana hopes to have two more kids (she didn’t). Davey thinks he’s finally made it (sadly, his career would go downhill fast from here). Some not particularly funny bloopers over the credits.

Pretty boring video overall, as Davey and Diana aren’t exactly charisma machines. Might be the downer equivalent to whatever Warrior put out, but some might get some routines to use.