Harry Smith was fired by WWE in late 2021 but looked to be set up for a big future in the WWE!
WWE fired Harry Smith from his contract on November 4th 2021, less than a year after he signed a deal to return to the company.
He had yet to make his television re-debut, but wrestled in a dark match before an episode of Smackdown, teaming with Mr Money in the Bank Theory in a match that was said to have impressed Vince McMahon.
However, he was released due to budget cuts in November 2021 in a shock move. He had yet appear on TV so many WWE fans were not even aware that he had been signed to the company.
The son of the British Bulldog appeared at the Hall of Fame in 2021 to induct his father into the WWE Hall of Fame in his only televised appearance since 2011.
Harry Smith’s sister and daughter of the WWE Hall of Famer The British Bulldog, Georgia Smith spoke about her brother’s release from the WWE.
The former tag team champion was released seemingly on a whim in November 2021 before making his debut, and Smith reveals that the firing came out of nowhere.
She revealed that they were not aware of the reasoning for his release, but that she holds no-ill will toward the company for the shock termination.
Speaking to The A2theK Wrestling Show, Georgia Smith said;
“It was definitely a shock. None of us saw it happening, but it’s happened and at the end of the day, I am glad that he did go back. I felt like it was something he needed to do and it was the right decision going back. But I don’t know what the reasoning was, I am not sure.”
“But, I have no ill-will towards WWE or anything. Obviously, it was disappointing and it was a shock, but at the end of the day I think Harry will be alright.”
She did go on to reveal that Harry Smith is doing good after his release from WWE and that he is still working on himself and training in various martial arts, as well as continuing to wrestle on the independent circuit.
He’s good, he’s just training a lot he’s been pretty busy. That’s about it really. He’s just been keeping busy, he has gone all day doing boxing classes, jiu-jitsu classes, grappling classes, training, meal prepping. So, ultimately, it’s like he’s still in WWE, he’s got that same mind frame. He’s not sitting and dwelling and depressed and letting himself go and whiney. He’s just continuing what he’s doing. I don’t know what the future holds for him.”
While his second run in WWE seemed to last no time at all, it may shock you to know that WWE had huge plans for the young Hart Family member. There were ideas for a new gimmick that paid homage to his roots and could have set him up for success in the future.
Harry Smith Was Set For A New Gimmick In WWE
The last time Harry Smith was seen on WWE TV it was as part of the “Hart Dynasty” tag team alongside Tyson Kidd and Natalya. After he was released by the company he was rarely mentioned, although most notably his release was brought up by CM Punk during his famous “Pipe Bomb” promo.
He was released by WWE in 2011 but after a run in New Japan was shockingly hired back to the promotion in early 2021. He inducted his father, The British Bulldog, into the WWE Hall of Fame and was subsequently hired back as a talent.
Harry Smith wrestled for WWE in a series of Dark Matches which were said to have wowed Vince McMahon. However, before he could make an appearance on WWE TV he was released from the company due to “budget cuts”.
There were plans for Smith, previously known as David Hart Smith, to be a big part of WWE TV, with a new gimmick already planned for his eventual return to Smackdown in 2021.
He revealed in an interview with Inside the Rapes that the plan was to bring him back to WWE under the name “The Stampede Stud”, a reference to his grandfather Stu Hart’s legendary Calgary-based promotion “Stampede Wrestling”.
It is unknown what this gimmick would have entailed, given the number of legendary wrestlers who wrestled for Stampede, but it would have at least been another chance for Harry Smith to make his name in the WWE after a disappointing run between 2009 and 2011.
Speaking with Inside The Ropes, Harry Smith said about his WWE return;
“John Cone said, ‘The next time you are going to come to SmackDown it’s going to be your debut’, you did really good (in your dark match), Vince really liked it’. So I was like, great, I’ll just wait and then they asked me to do a dark match in Tampa and they were going to do some backstage vignettes with me and my father’s leather vest.”
“They were going to show that for the documentary, and then luck be have it I ended up having COVID, really bad, so I was kind of out of commission for about three weeks or a month. Then I was kind of forgotten about, I came to TV one or two times… I was waiting to come back and then they called and Johnny (Laurinaitis) said he wasn’t a fan of it (his release), he wasn’t happy with the list of names he was given but it wasn’t from him.”
“I don’t know what they were waiting for, the only thing I was told was, I was going to be debuting on SmackDown and they were going to call me ‘The Stampede Stud’. It just never happened, it wasn’t my fault. I showed up more than in shape. I saw Vince and he was like, ‘Oh you’re looking good kid’.”
Despite getting canned by WWE before even making an appearance, The British Bulldog Jr soon bounced back. Teaming with partner Alex Taylor, he won the NWA World Tag Team Championships in June 2022, mirroring his fathers success in tag team wrestling with Dynamite Kid.
With Triple H in charge, there is still an opportunity for the son of the legendary British Bulldog to find his own place in WWE. However, it is unknown if The Game is interested in having Harry Smith in WWE so we will simply have to wait and see if he makes a reappearance now that Vince McMahon has left the promotion.
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