(Piers): Butch Parker is the standard bearer for professional wrestling in the UK. He went from being a just a big muscle-bound teenager to one of the most renowned and treasured sportsmen this country has ever produced.
The footage shifts to a clip of Butch speaking and his voice plays in the background of an amalgamation of clips of him wrestling at different stages in his career.
(Butch): The fact that I'll be sitting across from Piers; knowing what kind of questions he's gonna be asking...being under the microscope...yeah it makes me nervous.
Piers' image reappears.
(Piers): I think Butch is ready to finally come clean about all the crazy things that have been written about him in the headlines over the past few years.
The footage cuts back to Butch.
(Butch): I know what he's gonna ask me....
The footage quickly changes to old family pictures of Butch as a boy with his parents, his older brother David and younger sister Diana. It then shows a picture of Butch and his first wife Victoria fawning over their young infant son Scott. Butch's voice continues to speak in the background.
(Butch): My leg injury in EFWA...
An image shows a 19-year old Butch lying on a ring canvas, his face contorted in agony as he clutches his broken leg.
The recording proceeds to flick between clips of Butch and Piers speaking.
(Piers): His up-and-down relationship with Wisdom and Senester in HWA.
(Butch): My feuds with Michael Dredge...
(Piers): Buff Bridges...
(Butch): ...and Michael James.
(Piers): I don't think Butch has ever taken part in an interview like this.
(Butch): I've definitely never felt this anxious heading into the interview room...
(Piers): So, Butch, how are you?
Butch raises his eyebrows slightly and shifts in his seat.
(Butch): Well how long you got? I've got the HWA World Championship around my waist for a third time, I'm married to a beautiful woman and I have an even more beautiful baby girl at home waiting for me. On other hand I have to put up with a certain individual who seems to have dedicated most of his every waking hour deriding my wife and my daughter and making a mockery of my career and everything I've accomplished. Also he seems to want my World Championship.
(Piers): Well we'll get to Michael James in a bit. But for now we'll take a look at how you actually became one of the most popular professional wrestlers of the last twenty years.
As the audience whoop and applaud, Piers directs everyone's attention to the big screen at the back of the set and another montage of footage plays. Piers' voice narrates in the background as different clips of Butch wrestling begin to play from different stages in his career.
(Piers): Butch Parker, the young Scottish powerhouse became a firm favourite with wrestling fans the world over.
The footage switches between other wrestlers and personalities giving their opinions of Butch.
(Bryan Danielson): Butch Parker is the epitome of strength and power.
(Bret Hart): One of the last few great in-ring technicians. There's not a suplex of submission hold in existence Butch can't execute.
(Jim Ross): Without a doubt one of the toughest SOBs this industry has ever known.
(Sting): There's only a few wrestlers I've not had the privilege of facing but wish I had the chance to...Butch Parker is one of those men.
The footage switches back to the studio and Butch and Piers are sat down.
(Piers): How does it feel hearing compliments like that?
(Butch): Very humbling to say the least, Piers considering the company.
(Piers): So let's go back to the beginning of your career. You've been a professional wrestler for nineteen years, is that right?
Butch nods as he reaches over to the small glass table separating the pair and takes a sip from a small glass of water.
(Butch): Nineteen years, yeah. 1994 I came over from Scotland.
(Piers): And you were only fifteen as well?
(Butch): Yeah, I left the UK in 1993 but we had to get special permission from the government to allow me to travel and we had to get through a lot of red tape for my wrestling coach had to take guardianship of me so I could actually get out into the U.S. without my parents.
(Piers): And how did you find it? Coming to America and adapting to life as a wrestler so young?
(Butch): It was different to say the least. My coach used to put me through my paces for inter-school competitions but this was a different animal altogether. I had a complete training camp for each individual part of my game. I had a guy who managed my diet, my stretches, warm-ups and cool-downs, suplexes, submissions, striking. I hardly had any downtime to myself either; it was pretty much a whole year of training until my coach managed to get me a contract with a company willing to sign someone so young.
(Piers): and your coach, Michael Coburn, he was the one that passed on your moniker.
A reminiscing smile crosses Butch's face.
(Butch): Yeah, I used to think it was cheesy when he talked about how he was "The One Man Tartan Army" but when Michael introduced me to the EFWA owners and they see how big I was and when he added the nickname on to my mine, they loved it.
(Piers): And you had your ups and downs in the EFWA, didn't you? I mean you became the youngest World Champion at nineteen with the record number of title defences but you had that absolutely horrific accident during one of your title matches, didn't you? We have the footage here, are you comfortable watching it?
(Butch): Yeah, go on, I guess I should see it sooner or later.
The camera's view is taken up by a vintage clip from the EFWA pay-per-view Brawl in the Fall 97. A very young Butch Parker is standing toe-to-toe in the centre of the ring with a giant of a man wearing a hockey mask.
(Commentator 1#): Hell's Guardian has done a real number on Butch's leg knee and leg tonight.
(Commentator 2#): Yeah, Butch hasn't been able to stand properly for a good few minutes and look at how swollen his shin and knee look.
The giant known as Hell's Guardian is reeling from the hard strikes to his face and body but he breaks up the offence by delivering a hard kick to Butch's shin which stops him dead in his tracks. Guardian wraps a giant hand around the neck of Butch and lifts him with ease into the air for a chokeslam however Butch is able to somehow counter it. He chops at Hell's Guardian's massive hand and arm until he lets go. Butch delivers a massive kick to Hell's Guardian's ribs; forcing his head down.
(Commentator 1#): Butch looking to finish Hell's Guardian here but can he lift him up for the Rampant Lion? He's been hobbling on that knee for the last fifteen minutes.
(Commentator 2#): If anyone can do this its the young Champion from across the pond!
Butch hauls Hell's Guardian into a front face lock and tries to lift him up but he struggles to lift his opponent's 350lb-plus frame. Butch digs deep though and manages to lift Hell's Guardian high into the air, bringing the sold-out audience to its feet with a massive pop. However before Butch can turn Hell's Guardian and slam him down with the Rampant Lion, his battered and bruised left leg begins to buckle until all of the weight he's carrying above his head, as well as own, crumbles and his leg shin literally snaps in half with a sickening thud that can be heard throughout the entire arena.
(Commentator 1#): Oh my God! We need some help out here! Butch's leg just broke in half!
(Commentator 2): Literally!
Butch is lying in heap, his blood-curdling screams echoing everywhere as the referee calls for the bell and he hastily motions for assistance from the back. The fans have fallen silent as even Hell's Guardian is trying to tend to Butch.
The scene returns to the studio and Butch is instinctively reaching to his leg as if the injury were still fresh; his face quite solemn.
(Piers): Is that the first time you've seen that footage since you suffered that injury?
(Butch): Yeah, it's a bit weird watching it back again. I don't know what's worse; the injury or those tights I used to wear.
The comment brings a chorus of light laughter from the both the audience and from Piers.
(Piers): In all seriousness though Butch. That was one of the worst injuries anyone could hope not to suffer from and not only did it sideline you for a while but you had to relinquish your World Championship as well.
(Butch): Yeah that really stung but I understood why; I mean you can't have the championship belt not being defended for eighteen months. What was most difficult was watching from the sidelines and not being able to compete.
(Piers): I can only imagine how that must've felt. But you did eventually make your comeback and you found even more success, winning the World Title on four more occasions and you even won the Death Match Championship. What on earth is a Death Match? I mean we can see an image of you hear participating in one.
The camera switches to an image of Butch leaning on a set of ring ropes, his face a bloody, crimson mask. In one hand he has a baseball bat wrapped on barbed wire and the other a weapon that can't quite be made out.
(Piers): I can see that's a baseball bat with barbed wire around it but what is that in your other hand?
(Butch): Erm... that would be a staple gun...
Laughter trickles through the audience and it filters through to Butch and Piers as well at the relevation of what Butch had in his hand.
(Piers): A staple gun?!
(Butch): Yeah, well in a Death Match there aren't a great deal of rules and you literally have to beat the absolute *EXPLETIVE* out of your opponent until he literally can't stand anymore.
(Piers): Wow. Well moving on, after all your unprecedented success in your eight-year tenure with EFWA you then signed with the Worldwide Wrestling Coalition in 2002 and that's when things really got interesting for you Butch.
(Butch): Yeah I think I've if hadn't signed with the WWC I don't think I'd be at this stage in my career right now.
(Piers): You met Michael Dredge in WWC, isn't that right?
(Butch): Yeah we didn't ever actually meet in the ring but he played in me not getting a shot at the World Championship and after WWC closed that was what spurned me on to join HWA.
(Piers): You also met your first wife in your time with WWC, as well, was it awkward working with someone you spent all your free time with?
(Butch): Well Victoria was an interviewer so I didn't spend a lot of time with her during the shows so it wasn't too bad but after Scott was born it did make things a little bit difficult. Fortunately Malice Maverick, God rest his soul, let me have all the time off I needed to spend time with both Vic and Scott for the first few months of his life.
(Piers): Moving on finally to probably the most important chapter of your life, the Hardcore Wrestling Alliance. Now the HWA is where your career skyrocketed. How did you find it going from small gyms and community halls to huge arenas?
(Butch): It was definitely a culture shock but it was something I had to adjust to very quickly. I know what such a huge opportunity it was to come to HWA and if I choked on the big stage then it would be the scrap heap as opposed to the main event I'd find myself in.
(Piers): Your quick ascension to greatness is well-documented along with your relationship with ICE but this is a stark contest to some of the other greats as well as friend's of yours like Hans von Richtoven and Michael Dredge especially whose rise to main event status was a slow, meticulous one. Do you regret not taking the same route?
Butch sits back in his seat, running his hand up and down his chin, pondering his answer to Piers' question.
(Butch): I do in a way I guess because there championships I didn't get the chance to go for like the Intercontinental, United States etcetera but I still feel like I already paid my dues. I wasn't green when I arrived in HWA but I still knew I had to earn my stripes and I feel like I did that by winning Ring Master.
(Piers): Ring Master was just the beginning of a stellar yet controversial year for you Butch. I mean you entered into a relationship with ICE at the start of the year and ended up with Wisdom by the end of it. You won the HWA World Championship for the first in controversial circumstances and that seen quite a number of high-status superstars leaving in Thane Givens, Blush, ICE, Luscious Lenny and Punisher as well "Nightmare" Tommy Synn. Many compare it to the Montreal incident WWE had in 1997 when Bret Hart controversially lost the Championship to Shawn Michaels and went to WCW. Do you feel you screwed Thane? From your perspective what happened?
Butch takes a deep breath and exhales heavily through his nose, puffing his cheeks out as he does before he answers.
(Butch): I didn't screw Thane. The match was Ultimate Submission whereby you w. have to win by achieving the most submission victories in an hour. There was less than ten seconds left on the clock when I hooked him into a torture rack, the bell sounded but at the same time the referee had declared Thane unconscious and therefore it counted it as submission. I had earned more than he did in the allotted timeframe and therefore won the match.
Butch pauses for a moment to take another drink of water before continuing.
(Butch): However of the old guard didn't seem to agree with the decision and were angered that Thane deserved to hold the title for more than a month. I think they thought that by telling Senester they would resign if I wasn't stripped of the title but obviously Senester isn't a man you bluff against in a high-stakes poker game with no Ace in your hand. Senester called their bluff and refused to take the title off me and accepted their resignation.
(Piers): Whilst most of 2004 was a success for you, the end of the year was mixture of success and failure for you. You started dating your now-wife Wisdom, you lost the World Championship to Maniac but then you cleaned up the HWA Recognition Awards and won the MVP award. Do you feel dating Wisdom gave you more focus?
(Butch): Definitely. I mean yeah I lost the World Championship but Maniac was exceptionally focused at that point and when you get in that frame of mind, nothing can stop you from achieving your goal but Wisdom is a woman with an incredible fire and I definitely needed her in my life - need her in my life.
(Piers): Now your rivalry with Michael Dredge is one of most well-known, personal and violent in wrestling history. You had four of the most brutal matches of the modern-wrestling age but you also went to places no other people did. Looking back, how do you feel about it and how do you feel it compares to what is going on between yourself and Michael James?
(Butch): Michael and I have an extremely storied history and there was a time when I thought Wisdom and I could never speak or look him in the eye again let alone consider him a very close friend. But despite all the hatred we had for each other, throughout every match, there was always respect. He knew just how good I am in the ring and I knew I just how good he was. Everything we went through, all the personal *EXPLETIVE*we were still wrestlers at the end of the day. I went home to Wisdom and he went home to Kate. This situation with Michael James goes well beyond normal the perceptions of a personal rivalry.
(Piers): Well we know he has on multiple occasions labelled both you and your wife as racists from day one; that you segregated him from the rest of the roster because of his skin colour.
Butch involuntarily snickers and shakes his head with an sarcastic smile on his face as he takes another drink of water.
(Butch): I've said it a million times before when it comes to Michael James. When he arrived I was nothing short of welcoming. I acknowledged that he would need to earn his stripes if he wanted to be the best and that I'd be happy lay out a challenge; man-to-man if he was willing to accept.
(Piers): This is what you said, Butch.
Piers lifts a piece of paper from the table and reads the text printed on it out loud.
(Piers): "...Last but not least, I think it’s only fair to mention a newcomer, well I say newcomer but he’s not really a newcomer, more like a new addition, to the HWA roster. Mr Michael James.
I heard what you had to say Michael and I’ve seen you action from your HFW days, you’re time in XWF and WWOI. You’ve got talent, there’s no denying that, coming from another former World Champion and King of the Deathmatch. Let me put your mind at ease. In HWA, you’ll find no shortage in expectations, least of all with me.
You may have gone around the country being the flagship icon but that gravy boat stops here, Michael. HWA may not have the roster it used to have back in the day but there’s a plethora of talent waiting to bite at Senester’s World Championship he dangles like a carrot in front of us. You WILL have to prove yourself here. You will have to win and you’ll have to win in style.
I’ll be watching out for you Michael, and if you want it to make your name in this company, if you wanna seal your name in the annals of history, I’ll be more than happy to throw down. Just say the word."
(Butch): Not sure where the racial or segregative comments were in there, Piers, did you hear any racist innuendos there?
(Piers): Well not there but you were guilty of comments aimed at him in the past that mocked his Japanese heritage.
(Butch): Any comments I made were in retaliation to slanderous comments made about the apparent true parentage of my daughter and about Wisdom as well. When someone cruelly aims poisonous verbal arrows at your family; you tend to get tunnel vision when it comes to defending your family's name. Besides as everyone who watches HWA knows - one of my best friends, former HWA United States Champion Red Dragon aka Matthew Kiriyama is Japanese and I bet you a fiver he'd was laughing his ass off if he heard what I said.
(Piers): You yourself have also compared Michael James to an incarnation of yourself during your early HWA career. Do you actually think that or is it just something you've said to try and irritate him?
Butch can't help but laugh at the notion of him being a wind-up merchant and takes a moment to compose himself before answering.
(Butch): I was actually being serious. I arrived and defeated every single person the top brass put in front of me as Michael James has done. I went on to win Ring Master in my first pay-per-view appearance and Michael James did the same with the All Star Championship; I probably wasn't as vein and in-your-face with my accomplishments as Michael has been thus far but my confidence was most definitely at an all-time high and I can most definitely see similarities between the two of us.
(Piers): Well it doesn't take a genius to figure exactly what Michael James probably thinks of that. The verbal sparring between the two of you, from a neutral standpoint I should add, has been very entertaining. Do you get any enjoyment yourself out of it?
(Butch): That would be an emphatic no, Piers. It's like talking to a stuck record: the same EXPLETIVE* pours from his mouth every single time. It's always I'm the only undefeated champion in HWA," "The Parkers are this and Wisdom is that", "Butch Parker is dumb, Butch Parker can't wrestle."and then my rebuttals are just me repeating myself about the same crap he comes out with before. He'll always find someone random background character who conveniently takes his side and joins him in slandering my name as well. It's a vicious cycle and it gets boring very quickly.
(Piers): And he has a pinfall victory over you as well doesn't he? That must really stick in your craw?
(Butch): Yeah just a little bit. I'm not gonna go into it much for the sake of repeating myself for what seems like the thousandth time and in-turn have him point that out and a yet-to-be-aired promo. But for the sake of anyone who hasn't heard or seen what happened at Road to Ruin, I had the opportunity to secure the win, I let my pride get in the way and I opted to inflict more punishment on James rather than pin him. Later in the match, four of his cronies come out and sneak attack me, leaving me open for James to finish me off and get the win. For some reason he now feels he kicked my ass and justifies his cheating by pointing out he's a heel.
(Piers): Sounds tiresome.
Butch raises his eyebrows in acknowledgment.
(Butch): Understatement of the century, Piers.
(Piers): And now you've got this Best of 3 series against Michael James coming up so what does that entail?
(Butch): We have to pick three different match types, whoever wins two of the three matches wins the series.
(Piers): You have experience in this sort of scenario both though, haven't you?
(Butch): Yeah, Dredge and I did a Best of 3 back in 2009 that ended in a draw but I'm not taking it for granted. This will be completely different to anything I've done before.
(Piers): Well I wish you all the luck in the world Butch including your tag team match at Havoc. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions.
(Butch): Thank you very much for having me, Piers, it's been a pleasure.
(Piers): Butch Parker everyone ladies and gentlemen.
The audience in attendance stand up and applaud as Butch and Piers and the end credits begin to roll. The scene then slowly fades to black.
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