Matthew Joseph Korklan (born March 19, 1983) is an
American
professional
wrestler currently signed with
World Wrestling Entertainment
(WWE) wrestling on its
Raw brand under the
ring name Evan Bourne.
Before
signing with WWE, Korklan wrestled on the independent circuit for promotions such as Independent
Wrestling Association Mid-South, Ring
of Honor and the Japanese
promotion
Dragon Gate under the ring name Matt
Sydal. Korklan also had a tenure in the short-lived
Wrestling Society X promotion and was
featured on
Total Nonstop
Action Wrestling's early
pay-per-view (PPV) events. Korklan is known for
his high flying,
lucha libre-inspired
style of wrestling.
Career
Early career
Korklan was on his
high school's
wrestling team.
While he was a senior
in high school, Korklan began training with the St. Louis,
Missouri
-based Gateway Championship Wrestling (GCW)
promotion. After three months of training, Korklan began
wrestling for GCW on October 20, 2000, becoming the first person
under the age of 18 to receive a wrestler's license in Missouri.
Prior to this, Korklan had briefly performed under the ring name
Lance Sydal in the Saint Peters Wrestling Organization.
In 2003, Korklan (now using the ring name Matt and forgoing a
surname) formed a
stable in GCW, known
as Operation: Shamrock. In addition, Sydal and fellow stable member
Billy McNeil formed a
tag team. Operation:
Shamrock maintained a
feud with the
villainous Ministry of Hate
faction, lead by Nikki Strychnine.
Independent circuit
Korklan debuted in
Independent
Wrestling Association Mid-South in November 2003, combining two
of his old ring names into a new one, Matt Sydal. He won his first
title, the
IWA Mid-South Light
Heavyweight Championship, on January 17, 2004, defeating J.C.
Bailey. Sydal lost the title to rival
Delirious, on June 26, 2004. Sydal
joined
National Wrestling
Alliance (NWA) Midwest that same year ,on July 30, he defeated
Justin Kage for the
NWA Midwest X Division
Championship, which he also lost to Delirious after holding the
belt for nearly a year. Korklan won the title back when he teamed
with
Daizee Haze in an
intergender tag team match
against Delirious and
MsChif. A unique rule
of the match was that the male wrestler on the winning team would
be champion at the match's end. Haze pinned MsChif to win
Delirious's title for Sydal. Sydal lost the title to Jayson Strife
roughly four months later before leaving the promotion.
Sydal wrestled several top independent stars during his time as a
regular in IWA. He lost three matches to
A.J. Styles during a
short-lived feud. He also faced men such as
CM
Punk,
Chris Sabin and
Nate Webb. On September 24, 2005, Sydal won the
fifth
Ted Petty Invitational
tournament. During the tournament, he defeated
El Generico,
Tyler
Black, and Sabin to secure himself a place in the finals. He
met
Kevin Steen and
Arik Cannon in the final match and came out
victorious. Since then, Sydal has only appeared in IWA on a few
occasions, the last being in August 2007.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2004–2005)
Sydal was featured on
Total Nonstop Action
Wrestling's (TNA) first three-hour pay-per-view event,
Victory Road as a participant of a
twenty-man
X Division Gauntlet for the Gold match, a match
where two wrestlers begin the match, and are replaced whenever one
is eliminated, with the last person standing being named the
winner. Sydal also was part of an online poll for the
Sacrifice event. The winner of the poll
would meet
Christopher Daniels
for the
TNA X Division
Championship. Sydal, along with
Jay
Lethal and
Roderick Strong, lost
the poll to
Austin Aries. During his
tenure with TNA, Sydal was mainly utilized as a
jobber, a wrestler who
is rarely or never
booked to win a
match.
Ring of Honor (2004–2007)
Sydal, along with valet Daizee Haze, debuted in
Ring of Honor at
Reborn: Stage One on
April 23, 2004, defeating his recurring nemesis, Delirious.
Following a brief feud with
Trent Acid,
Sydal teamed with Fast Eddie Vegas as the "Air Devils" (a name
voted on by the ROH fans). They only teamed once, after which Eddie
turned on him
on at the
Third Anniversary Celebration: Part 2 on
February 25, 2005, joining the
villainous stable
The Embassy. On August
12, 2005, Sydal and Haze joined Austin Aries, Roderick Strong and
Jack Evans as the fourth member of
Generation Next, a group who was in
the midst of a feud with The Embassy. In late 2005, Daizee Haze
turned on Sydal, leaving him and Generation Next to join The
Embassy. Generation Next fought The Embassy in numerous multi-man
tag matches, culminating in a
Steel Cage Warfare
match on December 3, 2005, with Generation Next emerging
victorious.
After wrestling A.J. Styles at
Hell Freezes Over, the two
teamed up to challenge his Generation Next stable mates Austin
Aries and Roderick Strong for
ROH World Tag Team
Championship. Sydal would also team with
Samoa Joe and Jack Evans to try and win the
titles. Sydal went to the finals of the 2006 Survival of the
Fittest event, before losing to Delirious. Sydal and Delirious
brought their rivalry back to ROH as they engaged in several
matches during the summer and fall of 2006.
After several matches against each other through out the year,
Sydal teamed up with Christopher Daniels in another attempt to win
the ROH World Tag Team Championship. The two would feud with
then-champions the
Kings of Wrestling
(
Chris Hero and
Claudio Castagnoli), before winning the
titles at
Dethroned. Sydal and Daniels would successfully
defended their title against the likes of
CIMA and
Shingo, and former champions Austin Aries and
Roderick Strong, before losing the title to the
Briscoe Brothers (Jay and Mark Briscoe) at
the
Fifth Year Festival: Chicago. During their title
reign, Sydal would begin to show a
cocky,
villainous-like attitude. After coming up unsuccessful in attempts
to win the title back along with Castagnoli, Sydal joined
Larry Sweeney's villain stable Sweet n' Sour
Inc., which also included Chris Hero,
Sara
Del Rey and
Tank Toland.
Sydal, who in real life was receiving offers from
World Wrestling Entertainment,
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, and
Dragon
Gate, joined Sweet n' Sour Inc. to further Sweeney's
gimmick as a
"
super agent". When Sydal eventually
signed with WWE, it was said that Sweeney had "sold him up the
river to
Vince". At
Man Up, Sydal wrestled his final match for
Ring of Honor, losing to long-time rival Delirious.
Dragon Gate and Wrestling Society X (2006–2007)
Sydal began touring Japan with
Dragon
Gate in May 2006. While there he aligned himself with CIMA, Don
Fuji, and Jack Evans to form the New Blood Generation
International. He also became a part of CIMA's Typhoon faction.
During Dragon Gate's Wrestlejam event, Sydal teamed with Generation
Next stable mate Roderick Strong to win the $10,000 Tag Team
Challenge.
Sydal was also part of the short-lived
MTV
promotion,
Wrestling Society X.
There, he competed against the likes of Jack Evans,
Scorpio Sky and the
Human Tornado. There was the start of a
storyline that would have him feuding with
Syxx-Pac over Sydal's
valet and on-screen girlfriend
Lizzy Valentine., but they never actually
wrestled before WSX shut down.
In the spring of 2007, Sydal returned to Dragon Gate. During his
tenure there he won the
Dragon Gate Open
the Brave Gate Championship from
Masato Yoshino, thus becoming the first
gaijin to be booked to win the title. He held
the title for slightly over a month, making a successful title
defense against Yoshino, as well as against
Austin Aries at Ring of Honor's
Fifth Year
Festival: Dayton, before dropping it to
Genki Horiguchi.
World Wrestling Entertainment
Developmental territories (2007–2008)
After becoming a free agent again following the expiration of his
WSX contract and the close of the promotion, Sydal signed a
developmental contract with
World Wrestling Entertainment
(WWE). Sydal made his WWE developmental debut in
Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), at the
October 10, 2007 OVW taping, defeating Jamin Olivencia. In December
of that year, Sydal defeated
Mike Kruel
to win the
OVW Heavyweight
Championship. It was announced on February 7, 2008 that WWE had
ceased affiliation with OVW. As a result, Sydal lost the OVW
Heavyweight Championship to
Jay
Bradley. Sydal was moved to
Florida Championship
Wrestling and made his debut on March 22, 2008, defeating
TJ Wilson, before being called up to the
main roster of WWE.
ECW and Raw (2008–present)
Sydal made his debut for the WWE
ECW
brand on the June 3, 2008
episode of
ECW on Sci-Fi, as a fan favorite, losing a
match by count out to
Shelton
Benjamin after he was thrown at guest commentator
Kofi Kingston. The following week on
ECW, Sydal, now an official member of the ECW roster under
the ring name Evan Bourne, teamed with
Kofi Kingston to defeat
Mike Knox and Benjamin in a tag team match. In the
following weeks, Bourne defeated
Matt
Striker,
Nunzio, and
Chavo Guerrero using the
shooting
star press as his
finishing maneuver.
The move was previously banned in the WWE.
Bourne making his ring entrance on an
episode of
ECW
Bourne also made appearances on the Raw brand, saving
Rey Mysterio from an assault by
Kane. The two successfully defeated
John Morrison and The Miz the
following week. At
Cyber Sunday,
Bourne was chosen by the fans to face
Matt
Hardy for the
ECW Championship,
but lost the match after Hardy performed a
Twist of Fate.
Just two days later on
ECW, Bourne was injured attempting
a suicide senton during a six-man tag match, when he landed on his
right ankle, dislocating it and tearing his deltoid ligament. After
further examination, it was determined that surgery would not be
necessary, but was not cleared to return to the ring. On December
8, 2008, Bourne won a
Slammy Award for
"Best Finishing Maneuver" for his shooting star press.
On the March 10 edition of
ECW a promo was aired for
Bourne's return to ECW on March 17. In his return, Bourne defeated
Jamie Noble. Bourne would continue to
pick up major wins following his return. He began a feud with
Mark Henry in which he would score a
disqualification and count out win over Henry. Bourne also defeated
Henry's manager
Tony Atlas, but the next
week he lost to Henry via pinfall.
On June 29, Bourne was traded to the Raw brand, and made his debut
that night as the first of the three wrestlers that were part of a
Gauntlet
match against
Randy Orton, in which
he was eliminated. The following week, however, Bourne defeated the
United States
Champion Kofi Kingston in a
non-title match.
On the November 2 episode of
Monday
Night Raw, Bourne received a United States Championship
match courtesy of Ozzy Osbourne and "D-Generation X" against The
Miz which he failed to win.
On the November 9 edition of Monday Night Raw in Sheffield
, UK, Bourne defeated Jack
Swagger despite Swagger vowing in earlier weeks that he would
remain unbeaten for the rest of the year. Bourne's match
with Swagger was interfered half way through by
The Miz who Swagger accused of putting him off for
Bourne to hit his finisher move and win via pinfall.
Other media
As Bourne, Korklan is featured as a downloadable superstar for
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw
2009 video game. Korklan is available for download on
PlayStation 3 and
Xbox
360 in a pack along with other downloadable superstars and
content. He also appeared in
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010.
Image Entertainment, Inc. released a DVD titled "Before They Were
Stars: Matt Sydal: Bourne Is Born" on January 20, 2009, which
features every match Korklan participated in
Wrestling Society X as well as promos
and a music video.
As part of a package deal, Bourne can be downloaded for use in
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw
2009, which marks the first time Bourne has appeared in a
wrestling video game. However, he was made available without the
need for a purchase as part of the main roster in
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw
2010.
Personal life
Both of Korklan's parents are schoolteachers. He attended
Parkway West High School in St.
Louis.
In
2001, Korklan enrolled at the University of Missouri
, studying marketing, as he
was unsure whether he could earn a living from wrestling. He
continued to wrestle, attending college three days a week, while
wrestling mid-week and on weekends. He graduated with a
bachelor's degree in 2005, and began
working as a sales and marketing
vice president
for a small mailbox company in St. Louis, although he continued to
wrestle.
In wrestling
Championships and accomplishments
Notes
External links
Wikis
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