Paul Burchill

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by NeanderCarl Mister Noid, I respect you, booker man. Still, a couple of months as a midcard gimmick which went nowhere is not "success" no matter how much you liked him. Burchill is my fellow countryman (well... nearly), and a very good wrestler on occasion, yet I can't defend that character. We can agree to disagree if you want, and that's fine. I just think he'll be remembered as a "what were they thinking?" gimmick rather than a "wasted opportunity" gimmick down the line. Pirate Paul was no Waylon Mercy.

You're one of my favourite posters here, so I hope my disagreeing with you doesn't come off as hostile. I think we just have very different ideas in our heads of what "successful" really means in this situation. I think your version is that he wouldn't have made money or really been able to main event with the character; whereas I am more talking about the harmlessness of the character. I didn't find it particularly insulting or offensive, and it seemed to connect with the crowd.

I will agree with you on your vision of successful, as I don't think the character was meant to become a World Champion, or anything. I don't think that Pirate Paul was a complete flop or anything, though.

I will also say that I am glad Burchill has moved on from the character. This incest thing has a lot of people worried, but you just know Vince is going to love the character, and give Burchill a nice meaty push because of it. Right now, he looks good for being the next Intercontinental Champion. From his pirate gimmick, Burchill managed to extract the skills needed to play a character (I hope), so I think he will do surprisingly well with another obscure character.

I'm actually quite surprised with the characters they've gotten Burchill to play. Show me his early tapes from prior to his WWE signing, and I'd have said that the only way to use the man was to push him as a technical monster, or something of the like. While they got him to play that in the beginning, and in OVW, he's really been given some interesting characters that I'd never have picked out for him.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I'm hoping that Burchill's ability to at least handle these weird characters thrown at him will increase his stock in the company, help better him as an all-round performer, and make him one of Vince's favourites, and give him a job for a long while, even if he never makes it as a World Champion.