Real Name : Matthew Joseph Korklan
Alias(es) : Evan ‘Air’ Bourne, Matt Sydal, & Lance Sydal
Date Of Birth : March 139 1983 Height : 5’9 Weight : Approx. 185lbs
Pro Debut : October 20, 2000
Wrestling Organization : World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)
Trainer(s) : Gateway Championship Wrestling
Finisher(s) : The Air Bourne
Independent Wrestling Alliance (IWA) Mid-South
Matt Korklan began training as a senior in high school to be a professional wrestler. He was the first person under the age of eighteen to receive a wrestler’s license in th Me state of Missouri and began performing professionally after three months of training in Gateway Championship Wrestling (GCW). He debuted professionally on October 20th, 2000 performing under the name Lance Sydal. Three years later, Korklan became the leader of a group within GCW called Operation Shamrock and changed his name to Matt Sydal. His group feuded with the Ministry Of Hate, led aby Nikki Strychnine through most of 2003. Toward the end of the year, however, he began wrestling for Independent Wrestling Association (IWA) Mid-South and on January 17th, 2004, he won the IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight title belt and retained it for nearly five months.
During the same year, Korklan also began working for the NWA – Midwest and on July 30th, defeated Justin Kage for the NWA Midwest X Division Championship. He held the title belt for almost a full year before losing it in a match against Delirious. During an inter-gender tag team match featuring Sydal and Daizee Haze vs Delirious and MsChief, Daizee Haze scored a pin-fall on MsChief putting the belt back into Sydal’s hands for four months before leaving the promotion.
He continued wrestling as a regular in IWA Mid-South squaring off against names such as AJ Styles, Chris Sabin, CM Punk, El Generico, Tyler Black, Kevin Steen, and Arik Cannon. Sydal appeared on November 7th, 2004 ,in the first Total Nonstop Action (TNA) pay-per-view event as one of twenty wrestlers in the X Division Gauntlet for the Gold competition. While he was with the TNA promotion, he was rarely used and never won a match.
By late September of 2005 Sydal was only seen sporadically in IWA Mid-South and discontinued wrestling for the organization all together in August of 2007 before signing with World Wrestling Entertainment.
Ring Of Honor (ROH)
On April 23rd, 2004, Matt premiered as a regular in the Ring Of Honor (ROH) promotion along with valet Daizee Haze defeating long time nemesis Delirious and shortly after, joined a group called Generation Next consisting of Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, and Jack Evans. Generation Next began a long feud with another ROH group “The Embassy” that led to many memorable tag and singles matches and culminated in a Steel Cage Warfore match occurring December 3rd, 2005 with Generation Next emerging triumphant. Shortly afterward, Generation Next broke up and Sydal teamed with AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Jack Evans (on separate occasions) while trying to wrest the ROH World tag Team Championships from Austin Aries and Roderick Strong to no avail. Throughout most of late 2006, Sydal continued his feud with Delirious and had several exciting matches against Christopher Daniels. Soon, the two teamed up and won the ROH World Tag Team Championship titles from Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli. The duo successfully defended the titles against the teams of CIMA and Shingo, Aries and Strong, and Hero and Castagnoli before finally losing them to the Briscoe Brothers on February 24th, 2007. At Man Up on September 15th, 2007, Matt Sydal made his last appearance in ROH losing to long time rival Delirious.
Dragon Gate & Wrestling Society X
Matt Sydal stared touring Japan with Dragon Gate in May of 2006. He aligned himself with CIMA, Jack Evans, and Don Fuji to form the New Blood Generation International and became part of CIMA’s Typhoon faction. During Dragon Gate’s Wrestlejam event, Sydal teamed with Roderick Strong to win a $10,000 Tag Team Challenge.
Sydal was also part of the short lived promotion “Wrestling Society X”. While there, he competed against Jack Evans, the Human Tornado, and Scorpio Sky.
By spring of 2007, Sydal returned to Dragon Gate to win the Dragon Gate Open’s Brave Gate Championship title belt from Masato Yoshino. He held the title for over a month, defending it against Yoshino and Austin Aries, before losing it to Genki Horiguchi.
Ohio Valley Wrestling(OVW) & Florida Championship Wresting (FCW)
In early October of 2007, Sydal signed a contract with World Wrestling Entertainment and begin touring their developmental territories. He debuted victorious on October 10th, in OVW beating Jamin Olivencia and just two months later defeated Mike Kruel to obtain the OVW Heavyweight Championship. He retained the title until WWE ceased their affiliations with OVW and he was moved to WWE’s new development territory FCW. Sydal premiered on the March 22nd, 2008 FCW television taping upsetting TJ Wilson and was, soon after, called to the main WWE roster.
Evan Bourne – Extreme Championship Wrestling
On June 3rd, 2008, we were all treated to a new and exciting WWE superstar via the ECW brand, aptly named Evan ‘ Air’ Bourne. He immediately began a feud with Shelton Benjamin after he was thrown at Kofi Kingston during their match and was counted out. The following week, Kingston and Bourne teamed up to defeat Shelton Benjamin and Mike Knox in tag team competition. Bourne began singles competition defeating Chavo Guerrero, Matt Striker, and Nunzio using his picture perfect shooting star press. Soon after, ECW made a major move headlining Bourne’s fantastic aerial display in their opening promo for all the ECW broadcasts. Evan Bourne appeared on Monday Night RAW to save Rey Mysterio from an assault by Kane. Bourne and Mysterio tagged the following week and defeated John Morrison and The Miz. Evan’s first WWE pay-per-view featured him on Cyber Sunday as a fan pick to face Matt Hardy for the ECW Championship. Both performers gave a great effort, but Evan met a sudden ‘twist of fate’ and lost to Hardy. Two days later, Evan Bourne was seriously injured during a six-man tag team match while performing a suicide senton dislocating his right ankle, sidelining him for months. In December, Evan was remembered in his absence within the WWE as he won a Slammy Award for the best finishing maneuver.
Evan Bourne returned to the ring on March 17th, 2009 defeating Jamie Noble in a singles match. Looking sharp as ever, he continued to defeat opponent after opponent each week until he faced the world’s strongest man, Mark Henry. In the midst of this battle, on June 29th, Bourne concluded his work with ECW and was traded to Monday Night RAW.
Evan Bourne – Monday Night Raw
The night that Bourne was traded to RAW, Randy Orton was put in a Gauntlet match by the acting general manager of the evening, Batista. Evan was the first of three wrestlers to be eliminated by Orton. On July 6th, he defeated Kofi Kingston in a non-title match, two weeks later, he met his biggest and baddest opponent yet, The Big Show. On July 20th, Evan sustained a neck injury due to a spear taken from the Big Show that completely wiped him out. Nevertheless, he appeared days later to defeat Jamie Noble in a singles match on WWE Superstars. On RAW the following week, Evan Bourne beat Jack Swagger in a beat the clock challenge. This angered Swagger and he got his revenge on August 3rd and 10th, by not only beating Bourne in the ring both times, but also after the match. The following week Bourne lost his scheduled match to The Miz. On August 24th, Evan Bourne saved Hornswaggle from a beating at the hands of Chavo Guerrero. Hornswaggle and Guerrero competed in a Texas Bullrope match the following week on RAW that showed Evan distracting Chavo during the match allowing Hornswaggle to gain the win. This began a feud between Guerrero and Bourne. On September 3rd, Evan once again joined the WWE Superstars show to defeat Chris Masters. During the match, he took a brutal beating, but wound up winning using the shooting star press. On September 7th, the Bourne vs Guerrero feud began, after a hard fought match, Bourne managed to pin Guerrero with a quick roll up.