Vince McMahon Pushing For DH Smith's Return
Following recent comments from the one and only Vince McMahon, DH Smith is pretty much a lock to return to the main WWE roster in the near future.
Smith, as well as tag team partner TJ Wilson, are scheduled to be called up to the SmackDown roster very soon. Upon their call-up, the two will be paired up with WWE Diva and long-time friend Natalya. The act worked a dark match prior to last week's set of SmackDown tapings, losing to WWE Tag Team Champions Carlito and Primo. Their eventual call-up all stems from a situation that occurred two months ago.
During a flight home to Connecticut, Vince McMahon was in a bad mood due to what he considered to be a bad week of television tapings. McMahon looked over a sheet of paper listing the entire roster -- including developmental talents down in Florida Championship Wrestling. McMahon saw the name Harry Smith, and railed on the creative team for letting this "Pedigree kid" sit on the sidelines. McMahon called Smith a "Pedigree kid" because he's linked to the legendary Hart family and people from wrestling families are always favored (which explains why so many of them have landed developmental contracts despite little to no prior wrestling experience). Well, McMahon went on and on about the creative team letting good, young talent such as Harry Smith waste away or get jobbed out.
Following McMahon's rant, Smith & Wilson were put together as a team in Florida to get them on track for their eventual call-up to the main roster.
In what was likely a first, Smith was actually called to the main WWE roster in late 2007 as a result of a failed drug test (he failed for the anabolic steroid Stanozolol, which is commonly sold under the name Winstrol). Following the Signature Pharmacy drug scandal, WWE said they were going to start publicly announcing all future WWE drug suspensions on November 1, 2007. As luck would have it for WWE, a week or two following the announcement, Smith failed his drug test. WWE held off his suspension for several weeks so they would have a main roster wrestler to announce to the public once the provision went into effect. At the time, Smith was still in developmental, so they could have quietly suspended him, or just wait until November 1st, but he would have been a minor league wrestler at the time and his suspension would have likely been ignored by the media. WWE decided to call up Smith and give him a push right off the bat. He debuted on television in mid-October, got two straight wins, and was suspended two weeks later. This was to show everyone that wrestlers getting pushed could be suspended too, although it later appeared that WWE didn't have any real intention on pushing him at the time.
Smith returned to the active roster in late December, but did little of note until being pulled from the road this past May. After his return from suspension, Smith would primarily wrestle on Heat. In his three wrestling appearances on Raw following the suspension, he actually never got a lick of offense in on any of his opponents. Umaga squashed Smith in under two minutes in February. He was pinned within thirty seconds by John Cena in that memorable Cena & Orton vs. "The Entire Raw Roster" match back in March. In May, he was written off of television as JBL beat him so badly he had to be carried out on a stretcher (which actually wasn't broadcast on TV, but rather, a small WWE.com video). For a a few weeks prior to his exit from the main roster, Smith began wrestling as a tweener, alternating between face and heel roles, and calling himself "The Canadian Bulldog" in hopes of giving a better identity.
In a recent interview, Smith claimed he made the call to return to developmental, feeling he needed to re-focus, mature, and develop his skills to be ready for his eventual return to the main roster.
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12-04-2008, 07:52 PM
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