Before his sensational sequence of six wins in seven fights as an amateur mixed martial artist, followed by a technical knockout in his professional debut, Danny Buteau lived and breathed wrestling.

Through high school and college, the discipline and preparation required to excel in that environment made him first a four-time state titlist, then a national champion. It’s a label Buteau has worn with pride throughout his meteoric rise in New England Fights (NEF).

“What I take away from wrestling the most is that grittiness, that constant pressure, my lungs,” Buteau said. “When I got done wrestling, I could wrestle for 30 minutes straight. You can’t do anything 100 percent for more than 10 or 15 seconds if it’s your true 100 percent, but 85, 90 percent for 30 minutes straight, and I can do the same thing now in MMA.”

Buteau (1-0) will bring that smothering acumen and tireless attitude to the cage Saturday, February 7 against Shawn Johnson (5-14) in a bantamweight bout at “NEF 65: Arctic Assault.”

The card is slated for the James A Banks Sr Portland Exposition Building in Portland, Maine, less than an hour south of Buteau’s home in Litchfield. Doors open at 6 p.m., with a bell time of 7 p.m.

Fighting on a mat is a family tradition that has been in Buteau’s blood almost as far back as he can remember.

“I was in third grade when I started wrestling, so probably nine years old. I remember going to the classes, and I think I took third at states,” Buteau said. “Then I won my first peewee state championship as a fourth grader, so I was pretty successful right away.”

He was the middle child of three, younger than Levi and older than Zoe. Danny’s sister was a national champion in girls’ high school competition, while his brother joined him as a Maine and New England champion in middle school before later focusing on football.

When their parents initially talked about taking a wrestling class, the Buteau kids admittedly raised an eyebrow, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson style.

“We grew up watching WWE, so that’s exactly what we thought,” Danny recalled. “We obviously found out the first practice or two that, hey, that’s not what we’re doing. I fell in love with it right away, and it became a thing.”

He remains just as proud of his family members’ wrestling accomplishments as his own.

“I think I was always competitive, especially with an older brother,” Buteau said. “I always wanted to do everything he did. I wouldn’t say jealous, but I looked up to him and wanted to be like him in so many ways.”

If envy ever crept in for Danny, it was from seeing how Levi built muscle and experienced athletic success so effortlessly.

“My brother was more naturally gifted when it came to everything. In the weight room, I’m busting my butt to try and get my numbers up weightlifting,” he recalled. “He comes in. He curls a few weights and does a max bench after, and his bench goes up. It makes no sense at all. It’s like, what the heck? I’ve been here for months, and my numbers are going up but not that much, and I feel like you’re not putting in that much work. I feel like I’m a natural athlete and stuff like that, but some people, man, they’re on different levels.”

Buteau competed for his local middle school cooperative team in Sabattus, Wales and Litchfield.

In a strategy that foreshadowed the cross-training that is so prevalent in MMA, Buteau also hit the club circuit, rehearsing his craft under the watchful eyes of Logan Walsh and Michael Cummings on the mid-coast, and Eric Austin, also an NEF cage veteran, in the Androscoggin River Valley of Rumford and Mexico.

“I give a lot of credit to that. That’s where I trained hard club-wise. They’re small rooms, 10 to 20 kids,” Buteau said. “The peewee tournaments, that would be more than you imagine. That would be all day. They would start with kindergarten and work all the way up to eighth grade, so no matter what, everybody got there at 7 a.m. and went home at 5 p.m. Everybody was in the same gym, just crowded. There were so many people.”

Buteau also considers Ric Swett, his middle and high school coach at Oak Hill, among his most influential mentors.

While his coaches sharpened his skills in the moment and set him up for excellence, Buteau mildly regrets that he didn’t have a clearer mindset at the time for what it would have taken to become an NCAA Division I wrestler.

“I wish I’d set my goals higher,” he said. “I always set big goals, but I didn’t have a coach at the time to tell me, ‘You can do this on the New England level. You can do this on the national level,’ until I got to college.”

Even becoming a four-time state champion only evolved into a concrete quest after he captured the first one.

“When I was a freshman, I wanted to win a state title. I don’t even know if I thought about it that much,” Buteau said. “I was obviously a good wrestler, and it worked out that way. The goal just became to win four state titles after that freshman year. They never got bigger than that. That’s why I kind of kick myself in the butt. If I changed my goal to wanting to win New Englands, those four state titles probably still would have come, but I would have been striving toward something else.”

In addition to his budding career in the cage, Buteau is a devoted husband and father to three young children.

He recognizes that a high-level wrestling career might have put him on a different path, so he doesn’t spend much time wondering ‘what if’ at age 26.

“Fighting in Maine, I knew who I could cross paths with. I still trained hard,” Buteau said. “Don’t get me wrong. I feel like mentally and physically, if I set my goals higher, I would have been able to accomplish more. Who knows? Maybe my world would totally be different today, so I don’t necessarily regret it.”

As it is, Buteau’s legacy is unrivaled by the vast majority of those who have competed in his native state.

He won the 106-pound championship in his class as a freshman and sophomore, bulked up to 120 pounds as a junior, and topped out at 132 his senior campaign.

“My easiest bracket was probably my freshman year, and my hardest bracket was probably senior year, which it’s funny how that worked out with the kids in my division,” Buteau recalled.

As the time-honored maxim and numerous song lyrics say, heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Buteau lived the life of an adult with two full-time jobs as a teenager simply to stay on top.

“In high school, we had a weight room. You could do it after school, but we had practice right after school,” Buteau explained. “The only time I was lifting was before school at 5 a.m., so my schedule was really packed then, as well.”

His day began long before most of Buteau’s classmates set their alarm. In fact, the idea of having such a clock on his nightstand was almost foreign to him.

“If everything went perfectly in my freshman and sophomore year, my dad would wake me up,” Buteau said. “We would have breakfast, and then he would bring me to the weight room, and he would go start his day. I would go to the weight room, shower, go to school, and then go to practice.”

A decade later, Buteau sees himself as living proof of words attributed to a legendary wrestling coach.

“With a schedule like that, it makes it easier now when you do hard things in the beginning of your life,” Buteau acknowledged. “Dan Gable said, ‘Once you wrestle, everything else in life is easier.’ It depends on the culture of the club you wrestle around, all those good things, but for the most part I feel like that’s what it was like for me.”

Buteau juggled both school and club practices for part of the year, and something wrestling-related would occupy his attention on the weekend nearly year-round.

It’s a grind he can recall with a smile when adult responsibilities crop up today.

“Just this past Sunday, I was working a bunch, and it prepares you for everything,” Buteau said. “You’re like, ‘I should be doing whatever with my kids,’ but I find myself working. I feel like my life has been crazy busy.”

When asked to select a few of his most memorable high school matches, Buteau paid homage to two friendly rivals who are no longer with us.

“One of them, rest in peace, Jake Martel from Noble. It was my senior year at all-states,” he remembered. “I had him in the semis, and man, he was a tough kid. We were back and forth the whole match. We both took each other down a couple of times. We got in a bunch of different scrambles. I believe I ended up winning in overtime. That was an awesome match. Now that he’s gone, it makes it that much more special.”

Another fallen competitor, Griffyn Smith of Dirigo High School, gave Buteau fits at two different stages in his career.

“I think it was my junior year. We wrestled like three times, and I beat him three times, but every single one was right down to the last minute or last exchange,” Buteau said. “I wrestled Griffyn in peewees, and he beat my butt every single time. Then we finally got to wrestle again his senior year, my junior year, and those were awesome matches as well.”

He has a less bittersweet and more lighthearted memory of a bout with RJ Nelson from Foxcroft Academy.

“My senior year, it wasn’t a crazy tough match, but I beat RJ, I think 8-1 or 9-1. I think I just barely got the major (decision),” he said. “I remember being a little cocky. He almost took me down, and we ended up off the mat. I got up, and he was on his knees, kind of like, ‘Aw, I can’t believe I didn’t get that takedown.’ I just patted or rubbed the top of his head as I walked by, some silly thing.”

Buteau altered his approach to more of an all-out assault on the competition when he got to Husson University in Bangor.

“I really changed my style going into college. I wasn’t super defensive. I hadn’t been super offensive in high school. I feel like that had to do with my goals and stuff,” he said. “Once I got into college, my coach pushed me toward looking for the pin and looking for the technical fall, setting way higher goals. I feel like that has really affected my fighting.”

MMA fans and opponents see that same side of Buteau in the present.

“I’m a pressure fighter. I’m going to be in your face the whole time,” Buteau said. “It’s just going to be gritty. It’s not going to be flashy. I’m not going to be doing spinning back heel kicks. I’m going to get submissions. I’m going to get knockouts, though, because these guys are going to get tired, and I’m not going to be tired. I’m going to put my fists on their chins, their ears and their temples, the same thing with my knees and elbows, and it’s all going to be because of constant pressure.”

That endurance level carries over into all the other disciplines that add up to success in the cage.

“In the beginning, striking and stuff was different. You get used to that. I have amazing striking coaches, amazing coaches all the way around,” Buteau said. “Now I’m in a position where it doesn’t matter if we’re wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, grappling. I can do whatever that is for as long as I need to do and more. I feel that’s what I took out of wrestling.”

Club teams from Husson and the University of Maine practiced together when Buteau arrived on the banks of the Penobscot River.

He credits that coach his freshman year, Josh Pelletier, with influencing his affinity for goals and his passion for pace and pins.

Training partners Brent Waterman and Eddie DeRoche also played integral roles in Buteau’s ascent to a national championship.

“Josh was the one freshman year who helped me get my head screwed on tight, and then I was able to implement that myself for a year and do all the work for that national title,” Buteau said.

He reached that summit in his sophomore season, and what was ultimately his final year of interscholastic competition.

“The actual wrestling aspect of it, I just remember I was a man on a mission,” Buteau said. “I lost to the kid I beat in the finals two weeks earlier at the regional tournament to qualify for nationals. I thought I won that match. I thought the ref should have called stalling the whole match. He was a slick wrestler. He would strike on the edge of the mat and get these nice takedowns. I pushed him all around the mat in that regional. He ended up winning, so I came back and beat him.”

His semifinal victory stands out for similar reasons.

“I lost to the kid in the blood rounds (to determine All-American status) the year before, so I had two comeback matches in that tournament,” Buteau said. “My finals match I won in overtime. My semifinal, I won with one riding time point.”

There was one notable speed bump for Buteau, who earned pins and technical falls all the way through the quarterfinal match. He suffered a partial tear of the LCL (lateral collateral ligament) in his knee during that round.

Buteau’s father, Dale, was on the scene for moral support and to track down whatever Danny needed to keep competing.

“He ended up getting me this muscle rub,” he said. “We put that on my knee. I had other stuff on my body that was sore. We basically rubbed it all over my back, my arms and my stomach.”

It turns out that the tube reads ‘use only as directed’ for a reason.

“I started sweating right before my match, and oh my God, my whole body was on fire,” Buteau said. “I’m about to wrestle. We go in the bathroom, and my dad is trying to wipe me down, getting all the stuff off, and it wasn’t working. We learned, because the finals match was the next day, and we’re like, ‘Oh, we’re not going to do that again.’”

Dale Buteau passed away unexpectedly on February 2, 2025. That initially painful and later hilarious pre-fight memory takes on added meaning today.

“I was borderline crying, but we were both laughing so hard. It’s one of my best memories that I have of my dad now,” Danny said. “Every time I was around him from there on out, if it was one of his friends who hadn’t heard the story, he had to tell it every single time. It was great.”

Like the father who carted him to all those early-morning and weekend practices, the son was relentless on the national stage when it mattered most.

“I remember being gritty in those last two matches, just refusing to lose,” he said. “It came right down to the wire in both matches. It didn’t matter what I had to do. I was not going to stop.”

When he finally got the watershed win, time stood still, but Buteau couldn’t.

“That last match, we went into all the overtimes we could. I won. I got my hand raised. I did a backflip. I went and hugged my coaches, and then I jumped down off the stand,” he said. “It was like an elevated stand, three or four feet up in the air. I jumped off that, and then I jumped up in the stands to my dad and my teammates and the friends who were there.”

College wrestling screeched to a halt for an unexpected but blessed reason.

“The summer between my sophomore and junior year, my now wife (Savannah) was pregnant. I was doing physical education, so I’m not going to make that much money. She was in physical therapy, so she had four more years left,” Buteau said. “We basically both got done, and I started in construction right after that. I found out she was pregnant, and I was like, ‘OK, I need a real job.’ I went to work for Crooker Construction, a paving company, for a year. Then I went to Pepsi in Auburn.”

Still goal-oriented, still in love with the sport, Buteau went to work independently in a quest to reach a world championship level in his sport.

He was already being actively recruited by someone who envisioned him being natural in a closely related athletic environment.

“Matt (Peterson, NEF co-owner and matchmaker) was always messaging me. I guess it ended up working out for me,” Buteau said. “He wanted both me and my brother to start training.”

Levi still hasn’t responded to the overtures, but Danny proudly proclaims that his brother could jump into the fire and excel in the sport.

“My brother, he’s 27, 28. He has those genetics, that athletic ability. He could start fighting right now and be just as good as me in a couple of years. He’s so naturally talented,” he said. “Matt was reaching out to Levi and me, giving ss tickets. He got me VIP tickets to two or three cards. I didn’t even want to fight at the time. He just kept reaching out, and I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll take your tickets.’”

Peterson saw the potential for greatness in Buteau since the beginning.

“I’ve watched Danny wrestle since he was 10 years old,” Peterson recalled. “I saw him all through youth wrestling. I was there when he won his state championships. And from the very first time I witnessed him compete, something stood out to me—not just his results, of which there were many impressive ones, but his overall attitude.

“He never quit. He could be getting beat up in a match, thrashed by a physically superior opponent, but even as a 10- or 11-year-old kid, his spirit was indomitable. He wrestled with fire until the final second, every single time. I never saw him wilt in a match; he was always in it until the very end of every match he wrestled in. He made an immediate impression on me as a competitor.”

“In tournaments stacked with talent, Danny separated himself,” Peterson continued. “He showed the DNA of a fighter—that courage, that relentless need to keep pushing. Before he was even done wrestling, I was already encouraging him and his brother to fight, because I knew they’d translate to MMA. That base layer of competitiveness—durability, persistence, refusal to fold—that’s what you look for in fighters, and Danny has always had it.

“That kind of competitiveness doesn’t disappear, it just changes arenas. When you see it that early, you know exactly what it becomes.”

As is turned out, Recon Fitness, the gym where Danny’s post-collegiate wrestling coach offered his instruction, had a bustling MMA room.

“I was seeing the MMA and boxing every day, because I went in to wrestle, and they would be doing stuff,” Buteau said. “I tried to make my last world team. I went 4-2 in the last chance qualifier. I didn’t place. I talked to my wife about it, and I basically told my coaches I’m going to make the transition to MMA. Then I did.”

Buteau said it was a simple matter of wanting to remain an athlete and be an environment where he could chase the top of a mountain.

“It was kind of weird. It was just like, ‘Now that I’ve seen it every day, that’s cool. I want to do that.’ I didn’t think I would be able to reach my goals in wrestling unless I moved,” he said. “I want to be a world champion, and I’m not going to be able to do that where I am. So, unless I move, I’m going to switch, because I’m not done competing.”

He extols the virtues of his new sport to any fellow wrestlers who will listen.

“I wish more wrestlers would come train with me. I think wrestling makes the best background for MMA, but it’s not 1990 anymore, and just wrestling is not good enough,” he said. “That constant pressure, that grittiness, being able to bring your opponent to the mat, I think that’s the best background, but you have to develop everything else.”

Buteau believes his fistic skills are about to take the local and regional scene by surprise.

“I’ve been developing everything, but my boxing now is so sharp. I think everybody is going to see February 7 and/or my other fights, this guy is a great boxer,” he said. “Wrestling is the best background, but unless you get all these other skills, it’s not going to matter. Everybody’s going to time that shot, that uppercut or whatever. Your feinting feeds into your striking, and your striking into your wrestling.”

He compares it to speaking a second or third language.

“You just have to do it. Just like we’re having a conversation right now, it should be easy. It should be fluent,” Buteau said. “I feel like that’s the issue with a lot of kids now who want to fight. I know a bunch of people who are just starting their amateur career. They’re probably going to win a bunch of fights, and they’re probably going to lose a bunch of fights, because they’re thinking of it the wrong way.”

High school wrestlers in Maine are entering the heart of their championship season with regional, state, all-state and New England meets straight ahead.

Buteau has a two-pronged message for all those hopefuls. First, he has a word for those who think they want to follow him into a cage career.

“If you’re a wrestler right now and you’re in high school, you do have the best background for MMA,” he said. “Let’s go sharpen those skills and continue to sharpen your wrestling skills, and you can hit your limit.”

For now, he urges those wrestlers not to leave anything in the tank.

“My message to them would be don’t be afraid to push the pace and take those shots,” Buteau added. “I don’t like scared wrestling. Go out there and shoot your shot. In basketball they say you miss every shot that you don’t take. It’s the same thing in wrestling. You won’t score any points if you don’t shoot. Go out there, get in some exchanges, and try to be your best self.”

It’s an approach that Buteau said also translates well to the real world.

“I truly believe that’s what’s going to make you your best self in life as well,” he said. “Taking those chances in wrestling is going to help you take those chances later on in life. Sometimes I think back and ask could I have gone harder, and almost every time the answer is yes. I could have. It’s kind of crazy. No matter how hard I train, I always think I probably could have gone harder. I probably could have done more. I would just say go out there and freaking wrestle. Don’t be scared.”

One crazy rumor about Buteau’s wrestling days – and one he stopped just shy of verifying – is that he was never pinned in an organized match.

“I don’t want to be a liar right now. Someone’s going to pull up a clip. Let me actually go through this. This isn’t good in the story right now,” he said with a laugh. “I’m thinking of freestyle. I’m thinking of everything. I don’t think I’ve ever been pinned in an actual match before.”

Buteau said his Rumford/Mexico friends and training partners are the ones most likely to challenge the claim.

“It’s so funny, because Matt is from Rumford, and all those guys. Eddie used to tease me all the time. They used to say, ‘Remember that time Vinny (DeRoche) pinned you?’ It was the most I’ve ever been gaslit in my life,” Buteau said. “At one point I was trying to think back, ‘OK, Vinny is obviously really small. Maybe in third grade we were in the same match.’ Obviously, I didn’t get pinned by Vinny. That didn’t happen. I don’t remember third or fourth grade much at all. Middle school, high school, college, I don’t believe I’ve been pinned.”

Buteau will try to stay spotless in his professional MMA career at “NEF 65: Arctic Assault,” which takes place Saturday, February 7 at the James A Banks Sr Portland Exposition Building in Portland, Maine. Doors will open at 6 p.m. with the first fight taking place at 7 p.m. Tickets are on sale now at www.nefights.com/tickets.