Once upon a time - well, three years ago - Michael Smith was throwing for world titles under bright lights and showering in confetti. Fast-forward to 2025, and the former world champion says it now feels like “no one even remembers my name.”
It’s been that kind of year for the St Helens star. No trophies. No Premier League invite. No headlines – at least, not the good kind. His season took a nosedive after a shock 3–2 loss to Kevin Doets in the second round of the World Championship, a defeat that sent him tumbling out of the world’s top 16 and wiped close to a cool £500,000 off his ranking.
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Smith doesn’t hide from it – he thinks that one match cost him everything. “No, it’s people like you and other people who tell me where I’m ranked. I don’t really care as long as I’m competing and playing I’m not bothered,” he told the Weekly Dartscast.
“I think it shows in darts, it doesn’t matter where you’re ranked - if you’re playing well you’re going to get invited to things and do everything.
“I think if I would have beat Doets that year, I thought I would have been in the Premier League, especially because I’d been in every major, made a semi-final that year, had a final as well.
“Just because I had one bad game, now no one even remembers my name.”
It’s been a bruising stretch for the two-time major winner. Injuries, inconsistency, and a ranking slide have turned what should have been a season of stability into something closer to a darting nightmare. World No. 28 Smith failed to qualify for the World Grand Prix and World Matchplay, two events he once lit up.
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Still, there’s a flicker of that old Bully Boy fire. He insists the hunger is returning. “I just need to get that hunger back, which the last two months it’s started to come back a bit. Sadly, it didn’t come back at the start of the year, but it’s started to come back now.
“You can see my averages going up again around 95, 96, which means I’m about five points off competing properly, 10 points from winning. It doesn’t sound much, but it does over big long formats. A couple more hours on the board, another injection in December on my wrist and shoulder - and I’ll be like, Tin, man, then going into the Worlds.
“I’ll be nice and loose and concentrate on having a good 2026.”
There’s humour in there – as ever – but also defiance. The same stubborn streak that once carried him to Ally Pally glory might yet pull him back from the brink. His goal now? End 2025 on a high and sneak into the Grand Slam before one last swing at the Players Championship Finals and the Worlds.
“The main aim now is the last day in Wigan, Halloween, the qualifiers for the Grand Slam,” Smith continued. “So I’ve got about three weeks of solid practice, picking up where I left off over the last month.
“Then I’ve got Grand Slam, Players, and the Worlds - two of the three biggest tournaments of the year. If I can put some good runs in there, get back inside the top 10, then my career is back on track - and everyone just forgets.
“Because we have this conversation, I can go and win the Worlds and no one remembers I didn’t qualify for the Matchplay.”
And that’s classic Michael Smith: brutally honest, quietly funny, and always swinging back. You can write him off if you like - but history suggests that’s exactly when he bites back hardest.
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