"I wasn't going into it thinking it was just another game" - Michael Smith on his past struggles in major TV finals

Now a two time major TV title winner, Michael Smith had to wait a long while for his first taste of success. Smith first lost five eight major finals before finally succeeding at the 2022 Grand Slam of Darts.

"What annoyed me the most was the World Championship and the World Matchplay, I knew going into the finals I was playing the better darts," Smith reflects in an old interview with MDA Events on his losing finals against Michael van Gerwen at the Ally Pally and Rob Cross at the Winter Gardens in 2019.

"Instead of going into it thinking it was just another game, I knew what it meant from a career perspective and for my family's lives, so it's one of them," continues Bullyboy, who in total lost the first eight major TV finals of his career, before finally getting the win at the 2022 Grand Slam of Darts, then going on to life the world title in January 2023. "I wouldn't say it's a mental block. It's not bottling it, it's wanting it too much and trying too hard."

Arguably the best chance Smith got to win a title before he finally triumphed at the Grand Slam of Darts, came against Peter Wright in the final of the Masters in 2020, where the future world number one missed darts for the title before losing in a last leg decider 11-10. "It wasn't far off, that's why you see me drop to the ground," he recalls. "When it left my hand, I thought it was in, it just went on the inside."

Although Smith's story threatened to go down the road of the likes of Ronnie Baxter and Terry Jenkins, great talents who just never got over the winning line, as mentioned, BullyBoy refused to be denied and has since won each of his last two major TV finals.