September 26, 201410 yr comment_5628833 What are the best Borne in Portland matches? Borne was one of the 3 best guys in the WWF in '93, along with Bret and Jannetty. If you're giving consideration to character work, that run was a huge plus in that regard as well. He had the killer brawl with Kerry Von Erich in World Class. He was part of a fine tag match in Mid-South against JYD & Olympia. I just don't know if he had a sustainable run that would actually get him into a top 100. Borne seemed to be unable to get out of his own way a lot of the time. Big Josh was a colossal disappointment despite a few nice matches. As much as I love Borne as Doink, I think those Portland matches would really need to wow me.
September 26, 201410 yr comment_5628914 His best Portland matches are against--shock--Buddy Rose from June 1982. They had another good one in 1984, and Borne was still tossing off fun brawls against the likes of the Grappler as late as 1988. I don't think they were enough to push him into top 100 contention, but he was a terrific brawler who delivered some of the best offense in the territory.
September 26, 201410 yr comment_5628918 I think Borne's biggest strength is his versatility. He has a number of runs filled with, if not great matches, then very good ones, and very good performances, and they're wildly different. Doink and Big Josh and his Portland babyface character, and his rat pack heel and Borne Again to some degree all feel very different. That takes a certain level of talent.
October 16, 201410 yr comment_5633583 Borne is still in contention when you consider he had decent matches in Texas, Portland, Mid South, WCW and WWF. I don't know if he had any classic Top 5 promotion singles matches though.
October 17, 201410 yr comment_5633797 I think Borne's biggest strength is his versatility. He has a number of runs filled with, if not great matches, then very good ones, and very good performances, and they're wildly different. Doink and Big Josh and his Portland babyface character, and his rat pack heel and Borne Again to some degree all feel very different. That takes a certain level of talent. It's really awesome. He was like Lon Cheney with only clown makeup. He had such a generic face that he could do so much with to be different characters. When I saw Big Josh the first time I had no idea it was Borne, and I had watched him for years.
March 22, 20169 yr comment_5734753 He's a very underrated pick that will make the back end of my top 100. What I really appreciate about his work is that he can he's able to work his matches to the tone of some really bad characters. Did any one ever enjoy the other incarnations of Doink? If it wasn't for the stiff move set/really good technical style and sound cowardly selling no way that character would ever get it over. (it didn't after him IMO) He hsdad a really good match against Mr. Perfect if you're interested in checking out something other than the Bret Hart match. Big Josh was a fun brawler who had that wacky log rolling gimmick that got some okay reactions. He was a real solid lower midcard act, that had some pretty fun matches. The you have the maniac stuff in the territories which was one of the stiffest wrestlers at the time, he looked like he was shooting half the time. He's worth a pick based on his diversity, pretty decent tenure, ability to work/get awful characters over in the ring.
March 22, 20169 yr comment_5734766 He was an awful lot better as a member of the Rat Pack in Mid-South than he was as Big Josh.
May 7, 20214 yr comment_5951313 I've always been a big fan of Matt Borne and he is someone I want to watch more of this time around and think about. He would have benefited from a good career comp and he deserved one too. He worked in a lot of different places and did a lot of different things. The Doink run is fucking awesome. Great in ring work mixed with incredible character work. Its the sort of high end all around work that you can really build a top 100 candidacy on. He'd good in Mid-South and I REALLY like his Portland work. No surprise but he has an awesome feud with Buddy Rose in 81-82. The have a lumberjack match that is particularly spectacular but some other really great stuff as well. So I'd recommend anything against Rose. There's also a really awesome double juice brawl against Rip Oliver I liked a ton as well. Those violent brawls in Portland combined with the Doink run make him an interesting versatility candidate as well. He's someone I want to poke around and look at because he worked in a ton of different places over the years. Has a really good shot at making my list.
July 13, 20223 yr comment_5985802 As Doink he was the best guy in 1993 WWF week to week. Better than Hart, better than Hennig, better than Michaels. Janetty was probably a close second.
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