Paul Burchill

Paulcliff "Paul" Birchall (born 8 October 1979), better known by his ring name Paul Burchill, is an English professional wrestler best known for his time with WWE.

Prior to joining WWE, Burchill wrestled for the Frontier Wrestling Alliance and other promotions in Europe.

After signing with WWE, Burchill competed in their former developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling, where he won the OVW Heavyweight Championship four times and the OVW Tag Team Championship one time.

Birchall is a former primary school teacher from Surrey, but got into professional wrestling in 2001 after walking into the Frontier Wrestling Alliance's (FWA) Academy and quickly impressing the man running the camp, Mark Sloan.

While training at the Academy under Sloan's guidance, Birchall made his debut in August 2002 using the slightly modified spelling of his name Paul Burchill.

In mid-2002, Burchill began to appear in the FWA by interfering in matches or before them, making unscheduled appearances and beating other wrestlers leading to October at Uprising when he took out both members of The New Breed (Ashe and Curve) singlehandedly before their match.

He went on interfering in matches, even taking out all four competitors in a four-way match until May when he made his first scheduled appearance at Frontiers of Honour, jointly held between FWA and Ring of Honor (ROH).

Debuting with manager 'Twisted Genius' Dean Ayass he defeated the tag team of Double Dragon (Raj Jordon and Ross Jordan), in his first sanctioned match by double knockout.

Burchill went on an undefeated streak in handicap matches against tag teams for the rest of the year, often running into the Duke of Danger (who he'd taken out in the four-way) and Andy Simmons, part of the aristocrat themed group Hampton Court.

He cemented this winning streak in a moment voted thirteenth on the FWA's Top 20 Moments when he interrupted the Duke's thrashing of peasants (squashing jobbers) at Hotwired in September and performed a double rolling fireman's carry slam before debuting his C-4 finishing move.

By the end of 2003 he was voted Rookie of the Year by both Total Wrestling and 1 Stop Wrestling.

His winning streak would go untarnished until mid-2004 at June's Carpe Diem event where Simmons continued to resist being pinned or submitting to Burchill.

Frustrated, Burchill went up the ramp to talk to his manager Ayass but while there veteran Drew McDonald came from the back and hit him with a steel chair causing Burchill to lose via count out.

Burchill gained some level of revenge when he teamed up with Terry Funk and Paul Travell to take on McDonald, Thunder and his first victim Ghosh at November's British Uprising III, receiving a standing ovation from the 1,800 fans in attendance as news broke that he had signed with American promotion World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

A fortnight later at FWA's annual Gold Rush event he faced FWA British Heavyweight Champion Alex Shane in a non-title match, being pinned for the first time since training in the Academy in his last match.

On 1 August 2004, Burchill defeated Doug Williams and The Zebra Kid (Roy Bevis) in a No Holds Barred three-way match to become the International Wrestling Promotions (IWP) Heavyweight Champion.

He would hold the title until 6 November, when he lost a Falls Count Anywhere match to D'Lo Brown.

In May 2004, Burchill made two appearances in Athletik Club Wrestling (ACW) in Germany losing in a tag team match to Jerry Lynn and Michael Kovac.

Later that night he took part in a 22-man battle royal losing to fellow Brit Doug Williams.

He returned in July for Summer Heat where he took on Patrick Shulz, who he had tagged with at the previous event, and won in a grudge match.

Shulz, with his Made in Germany tag team partner Eric Shwarz, gained a return victory later that night over Burchill and Crazy Sexy Mike.

He was called up to the main roster in August 2005, forming a tag team with William Regal.

Burchill briefly appeared in Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) in 2005 before his appearance on SmackDown, making it to the second round of a tournament for the OVW Television Championship.

He also feuded briefly with Nick Nemeth, exchanging victories before winning an OVW Southern Tag Team Championship shot along with Seth Skyfire in a battle royal but the hastily assembled pair could not defeat The Blond Bombers (Tank and Chad Toland) in the next match.

In January 2006 he began a feud with Ken Doane after Doane abandoned Burchill during a tag team match.

The following week Burchill defeated Doane despite the presence of the rest of The Spirit Squad at ringside.

He also had a brief angle where he interrupted a match to attack Shelly Martinez but instead carried her backstage and she was later seen wearing a pirate's wench outfit and chasing him to no avail.

She would later attack Cherry Pie during his win over Deuce Shade.

In September he won a battle royal for a shot at the OVW Heavyweight Championship but lost the match later that night.

He earned another shot at the championship in December by defeating Seth Skyfire in a Christmas Presents match.

A week later Chett the Jet beat Jacob Duncan for the championship at which point Burchill came to the ring and hit Chett with a steel chair, telling Danny Basham, the Troubleshooter, that he was the primary contender for the belt and demanded a match instantly thus ending 2006 with his first OVW Heavyweight Championship.

He defended the belt frequently against both Chett and Duncan in 2007 and earned the nickname "Ripper" by repeatedly defeating them both but lost it on 17 February in his second defence against Cody Runnels.

He won it back the next day from Rhodes.

After more successful defences Aaron "The Idol" Stevens won the belt from him on 14 March.

A rematch on 18 April ended in a double count-out but Burchill would not be appeased, interfering in Runnels' title shot to make the match a no contest and on 9 May he was given another shot at the title and won it for a third time.

Two weeks later on 23 May, a rematch between Burchill and Stevens went to a draw when both men simultaneously pinned each other leading the title to be held up and vacated.

A match for the vacant title was booked between Burchill, Stevens and Jay Bradley on 1 June with Bradley picking up the win.

Burchill regained the belt later that month on 27 June but lost it 28 July to Vladimir Kozlov.

After they split up the following year, Burchill was repackaged with a pirate gimmick and was aligned with Katie Lea, competing sporadically on the Heat, Raw, and ECW brands until his release from the company in 2010.

He later made appearances for several promotions on the independent circuit until retiring in 2017.