Stephen Bunting and Michael Smith are both from St Helens, but only one remains in the 2024-25 PDC World Championship following a massive upset in the second round
Stephen Bunting and Michael Smith are both from St Helens, but only one remains in the 2024-25 PDC World Championship following a massive upset in the second round Stephen Bunting and Michael Smith are both from St Helens, but only one remains in the 2024-25 PDC World Championship following a massive upset in the second round
Stephen Bunting says hypnotism saved his career – and now Michael Smith could be heading for the last trance saloon.
The ‘Bullet’ was Lakeside world champion in 2014 but struggled to make an impact on the Professional Darts Corporation circuit until hypnotherapist Chris O’Connor rekindled Bunting’s mojo with his eyes wide shut. Now the world No.8 is enjoying a new lease of life on the oche while ‘Bully Boy’ Smith needs to find the handbrake to arrest an alarming slide down the rankings.
Both players are from St Helens, both are former world champions and both have experienced the rollercoaster’s peaks and troughs – but only one of them is now heading up the charts. Bunting, who faces Madars Razma in the third round of the Paddy Power PDC World Championship after Christmas, says it’s up to Smith whether he seeks outside help.
But he gave the former world No.1 a wide berth after Bully Boy led the bonfire of ex-champions at Alexandra Palace, where Gary Anderson and Raymond van Barneveld have also fallen by the wayside. Following 2023 champion Smith’s shock second-round defeat by Kevin Doets, Bunting said: “I’ll send Michael a message. He knows how good he is.
“When you lose on that stage, it’s the worst place. And it’s so difficult to go home then and have a great Christmas when you work so hard to get into World Championship and then it’s over in a blink of an eye. So I can totally understand his disappointment and, thankfully, it’s not me going home and having a bad Christmas.”
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Asked if Smith should seek professional counselling like a hypnotherapist, Bunting said: “You’re set in your own ways, aren’t you? Yeah, I think my hypnotherapist did reach out to him and his family probably last year. I don’t know what happened there, but it didn’t happen and it’s not my position to speculate.
“All I can say is that I’m really happy with my hypnotist. I think he’s doing fantastic for me with things like diet, sleep and looking for energy when you’re playing. Each player is different, so I wouldn’t like to tell certain players, ‘This is what you need to do’ but you learn off the best. That’s my opinion.
“People don’t really understand what a hypnotist is about – he doesn’t make you bark like a dog or dangle a watch in front of your eyes until you fall asleep. He puts you under for 25 to 30 minutes and it’s the equivalent of four hours’ sleep.
“It just focuses you – 95 per cent of your brain is negative, like bucket that fills up with negative thoughts and all the stress of your everyday life, but the sleep movement takes down the level of this bucket, releases the stress and you can play with more freedom.”
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While Smith, who will drop out of the world’s top 16 after his blow-out against Doets, could be sweating on his place in the 2025 Premier League line-up, Liverpool fan Bunting is dreaming of a lap of honour at Anfield. Ten years ago, when he paraded his Lakeside trophy in front of the Kop, those cheeky rascals serenaded him with a chant of “There’s only one Phil Taylor.”
But if he lifts the PDC’s Sid Waddell Trophy on January 3, he would love to show it off 48 hours later at the red-letter needle match with Manchester United. He grinned: “I can imagine what the Man United fans would shout at me… and I don’t think it would be: There’s only one Phil Taylor!”
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Mirror – Sport