Martin Stone, aka NXT’s Danny Burch, recently spoke with Through The Curtain; you can read a few highlights below:
On where the Danny Burch name came from:
At the time you submitted 10 names and highlighted the ones that you wanted. That name got thrown together by four of the other names that I’d picked. I never actually came up with Danny Burch. They said ‘yep, we want to run with that’, and I was like ok. From that day forward I was Danny Burch.
Burch talks about previously being released by WWE:
I was fully under contract between 2012 and 2014. I got released April of 2014. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I would put the blame on me. I’m not going to turn around and say I didn’t get my shot. For whatever reason it didn’t work out. It was very frustrating because I couldn’t find the Martin Stone that got me there. Being out injured really took a toll on my confidence. I forgot who I was. I couldn’t find where that was. It just got to a point I was so unhappy because I couldn’t perform how I wanted to. I couldn’t get the gears into place. I was so unhappy because something that I loved so much growing up I started to resent because I couldn’t find that spark again.
I got pulled into the office and they said they had to let me. It was mixed emotions. I was like ok, at least now I can go and try to find this guy back home, and if he’s not there I’m done. Or I can find this guy and see what happens in the future. It was one of those things where it sucked. It was horrible being told that’s it. I have no regrets from my time there for two years. Not many people can say ‘hey, I got hired by WWE and I moved to Florida and was getting paid a good wage each week.’
At the time I was in a singlet. When I went back on the indies that’s when I went to jeans with bleach thrown all over it. Also I was really fat so it was a way of covering up. At that point in time, about three or four weeks before I was released, I met my now wife. I did long distance. I was doing the indies in England, going to Germany. I was a regular for Rev Pro. I was a regular for ICW. I was working all the smaller shows so I was really, really busy.
I was doing long distance with my wife, and December 2014 I said let’s see what happens, and I moved back to Orlando. It’s been a hard transition. The Florida wrestling scene is not the greatest in the world. There’s some places that work really, really hard to promote stuff. You’ve got RONIN. You’ve got a new place in Fest. You’ve got Ignite as well which try really hard. You’ve got FIP, which has been a mainstay in Florida for years. It’s not the greatest of wrestling scenes in the world so I was really struggling. I said if this is what wrestling is here then I’m done. If it wasn’t for a promotion in Atlanta called AWE I would have hung my boots up.
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Burch talks about falling back in love with wrestling:
I got text offers from a really good friend of mine, Aaron Epic. He was like ‘hey, do you fancy a road trip to Georgia?’ I was like go on, why not. I then check on Twitter and see I’m wrestling Jimmy Rave. I text Aaron and say ‘this is THE Jimmy Rave from Ring of Honor, right?’ He’s like yeah, he lives in Atlanta. I was like, this was one of the biggest names that I’ve worked since being in the States.
This is about a year [in America]. I was trying to work as much as I could, but some of the houses were 15, 20 people. The last show I did in England was ICW and there were 4,000 people there. Then my first match in States there was 30 people in the crowd. I was oh, whoops. I had kind of gone back to how I started. It was about this time that I was done. I was in a real low place. I had a conversation with William Regal and I started doing extra work again. I would come in, work whoever, and that was it. I’ve been really lucky. My first match as an extra was Kevin Owens. Then I worked Apollo Crews in his debut. Then I had James Storm in his debut. Then they gave me a match with Tommaso Ciampa, and we beat the living snot out of each other. It was great. Ciampa is such an incredible talent.
Around about that time was when I decided to get in the best shape I could. I was getting to the point where I knew I could work, I knew I could talk. What’s the chink in the armor? The only thing left I can look at in the mirror is my physique. I’m going to get in the best shape I can. If nothing happens at least I threw everything on the table, and I can walk away, hold my head high, and look back and enjoy what I did.
I dropped 60 pounds, had that match with Ciampa [at AWE, and I was in love with wrestling again. It felt so great to be in love with what I first fell in love with again. That then for me was when people really opened their eyes and said ‘Jesus Christ, Martin’s still got it.’ I was very lucky to be put in the position I’m in now where I had the feud with Oney [Lorcan] and tagging with him. I think it was the feud with Oney that opened up the door for Beyond.
