Paul Burchill On The Biggest Challenges He Faced Playing A Pirate In WWE

Paul Burchill is best known to most for the pirate gimmick he portrayed in WWE, which came with elaborate attire. However, creating that look provided a challenge for him, as the NWA star admitted it wasn't easy to get the gear at that time. This was particularly true given WWE didn't provide him with much direction, which left him hoping he would deliver what they pictured.

"I came home and said to my wife, 'I'm going to be a pirate and this is the idea.' Then she just went to work for the next week calling museums, and all these different places to get the apparel to try and put this thing together," he told "Under the Ring." "It was kind of down to you to pull it together and turn up with it ready to go and that was an interesting time and quite challenging. To switch, almost in the course of a week, completely 180 your direction and your look and come up with this new persona, so it was kind of challenging." The pirate gimmick is one that ultimately didn't catch on for Burchill, but he did admit it was originally going to evolve into something edgier — both in appearance and character. However, a big problem was the fact he was injured early into the character's inception. 

"It didn't help that I pretty badly injured my knee on the day that we were debuting the character in the ring when I was running through my entrance and I blew my ACL and MCL out just doing a run-through on my entrance," he said. "That night was really interesting with a destroyed knee, and then kind of went along from there." 

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Under the Ring" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.