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Personality
Burke is an old school heel. He’s loud, obnoxious, and cares only about himself and his goals. He’s more than willing to cut every corner possible to get what he wants, and isn’t afraid to throw his size and money around.
Background
Steve Burke grew up in the suburbs of Limerick City, Ireland. Growing up, he had always intended to follow his dream of becoming a pro wrestler, and at the age of 19 moved to Newcastle, England to train as a pro wrestler in PZW Academy. Renamed Asylum, Burke was called up to the main PZW roster a month prior to his 20th birthday. While in PZW, Burke attained a relatively high level of success. Despite PZW being a small independent federation based in the Newcastle region, Burke caught the attention of various other European promotions, and captured the PZW Xtreme Title on five separate occasions. PZW was invaded by a dying federation named RBW, which managed to take PZW to the grave with it, but not before one final match, the PZW/RBW War Games, which was won by team PZW, of which Steve was a member.
Once PZW shut down in 2004, Steve retired from professional wrestling. Then, in November of 2005, he received a phone call from the offices of RIW, the developmental federation for the FTW/WOF union, and after being offered a contract, moved to the United States. At the same time, he was also picked up by the GCW's developmental federation, GPW and would begin working for both promotions in December of 2005. Steve quickly found a man he could trust in RIW, and formed the team known as The Inmates with Damien Riggs. The pair were largely unopposed while in RIW, being the only "real" tag team as they put it, and it was true, with them being the only team allied by choice, and not by the booking of the heads of RIW. At the same time, based on his past in PZW, Steve was drafted to GPW's Malice show, which was based around the companies large X-Core division. Steve's fortune in his early GPW career was the exact opposite to that in his early career in FTW/WOF/RIW. While undefeated while tagging with Damien Riggs, Steve faltered badly in GPW, and after twelve matches, had been beaten ten times, with only one win, by interference, and one no contest. However, Steve remained a member of the GPW roster and kept working hard on his craft, while at the same time, The Inmates were called up to the WOF brand of FTW/WOF. The Inmates in their first match defeated The Harrison Sisters, GWL and The Guerrera Brothers to capture the WOF Tag Titles, while Steve, as a singles competitor in GPW, defeated Mark Foley to earn a shot at Justin Dreamers X-Core Title in a 6 man tag team match, where he would team up with Mitch Xtreme and Pyro to take on Dreamer and The Justice League in a match where the Tag Team Championships were also on the line.
WOF folded and merged with FTW into FTWO, and Steve and Riggs put their WOF Tag Titles on the line against FTW Tag Champions, The Atlantic Connection. The Inmates successfully unified the Titles, after Burke rolled up Jim Dakota and placed his feet on the rope. At GPW Stardom, Steve, Pyro and Mitch Xtreme became the GPW X-Core and Tag Team Champions respectively, and along with Dexter St. Croix, went on to form Platinum Plus, with the group holding the Tag Team, International and X-Core Championships respectively. The Inmates made successful defences in FTWO for the next six months, before a neck injury forced Damien Riggs to the sidelines, an injury which he has to this day not recovered from, and as such The Inmates had to leave FTWO. At the same time, GPW split into two regions, GPW United States and GPW Canada, splitting Platinum Plus in half, with Burke and Xtreme being drafted to Canada, and Pyro and St. Croix to GPW US. Burke was elected the leader of GPW Canada, and quickly ordered an attack on GPW US. While this went on, a new group emerged in GPW, the sXwa, made up of Trent James, his brother Joshua, Pyro, The Priest, and VIP, led by GPW World Champion, Silver. As the war between GPW US and Canada faded away, a new war took over, with the sXwa attempting to kill GPW entirely, being fended away by The Revolution, made up of Psychonesis, The Big Sexy Freaks, WSG, Mari, and led by El Psycho Diablo.
Burke would later join the sXwa as it sought to take over GPW, but after winning the GPW US Title, and being thrown into a match with Silver and Mitch Xtreme at GPW Hellraizer for the GPW Title, left the group, feeling that Silver would attempt to sabotage his chances of winning the Title by having the rest of the sXwa attack him before the match. Hellraizer never went ahead, as due to internal problems within GPW, the fed went on a temporary hiatus. Silver, Pyro and El Psycho Diablo, the Champion and his top two challengers would then leave the company in September, leaving the company without a Champion. GPW organized The Blood & Bones Tour, a tournament featuring the entire roster, who would compete for the honour of being crowned the federations Champion. The tournament final was held at GPW Halloween, which was the final GPW show, where Burke defeated long time tag team partner and rival Mitch Xtreme in a Hell In A Cell match for the vacant World Title. Mitch Xtreme, Grady Smithson, Justin Dreamer and Burke were all called up to the main GCW roster, with the GPW Titles remaining on their holders, and the GPW gold to be defended on GCW television. Burke remained both the GPW US and World Champion, and set the records for the longest reigning Champion with each, surpassing the previous US Title record by over five months, and passing the record held by Silver for the World Title. Burke signed a contract with various independent federations, and picked up a few Championships along the way, before signing with ROPE. Pairing up with Christopher C. Creed as The Natural Born Killers and working for Alex Riley, the pair captured the ROPE Tag Team Championships, which they held for a number of months, before both being released by ROPE.
Burke formed a tag team with The Harbinger soon after in GCW, and together, captured the GCW World Tag Team Championships on two occasions. During this period, Burke ended the undefeated Wrestling Hysteria streak of Michael Hunter, and following his unification of all the GPW Championships, Burke would take the GPW Title to new heights, before finally burning the belt, effectively ending the last living memory of GPW. At the same time, Burke joined Boston based promotion, CWF Ignition, capturing the World Heavyweight Championship on three occasions, unifying the TV Title into the World Championship, before leaving the company, reportedly unhappy with what he felt was mistreatment - Burke was particularly unhappy with facing the same three opponents, Dane West, Connor Murphy and Shawn Fury, every week for four months, citing a lack of motivation to continue working for the company when it refused to push new stars as his reason to quit. Burke was inducted into the CWF Hall of Fame in June 2008. Following the closure of GCW, Burke had a brief spell in PAW, which closed shortly after it‘s inception. Burke offered a contract with Hybrid Wrestling, based in New York City. Repackaged under the name Sylence, Burke captured the Tag Team Championships as of September 15th, 2008, where he was one of the last two men remaining in a Battle Royal to become Champions, alongside Lloyd Matthews. Two weeks later he defeated Bob Pooler to become World Champion. He also began working for UCW, and captured their Undisputed Triple Crown Championship. In mid 2009, Burke retired from professional wrestling. Finding his life empty, he decides to return to the business, now under his real name.
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