Author: Not only was Brian Blair one-half of the tag team, The Killer Bees, and current president of The Cauliflower Alley Club, but he is also one tough SOB. Here, he details the time he got into a brutal bar fight with Matt Borne, a.k.a. Doink the Clown.
Matt Borne and Brian Blair Fight – “Ric Flair said it was the greatest fight he’s ever seen in his life!”
I had the privilege to talk with Brian Blair for the Genius Cast with Lanny Poffo podcast. In our candid conversation, Brian opened up about a host of topics, including the time he got into a bar fight with Matt Borne (Doink the Clown).
It all started over a misunderstanding at the bar where Matt Borne accused Brian Blair of hitting on his girlfriend.
“If you ever talk to Ric Flair, ask him who his favorite fight was,” Brian Blair gloats.
“We were in a bar somewhere in the midwest. [Dick] Murdock was there, [Adrian] Adonis was there, golly so many of the boys were there, [Don] Muraco, and Flair’s there, you know, acting crazy. Good time! Matt Borne just came into the territory. He hadn’t even been there a week yet. And he comes up to me, and he goes, ‘Hey, why are you messing with my girl?’
“I said, ‘Matt, what are you talking about?’
“He said, ‘You’re messing with my girl.’
“I said, ‘Who’s your girl, Matt? I’m not messing with your girl. If I am, I don’t know who it is. I mean, tell me who it is.’ And I said, ‘You need to calm down, have a drink, and realize that I’m not messing with your girl. If your girl wants to come up and say I messed with her in front of you, I apologize, but I don’t think that’s the case.'”
Things between Matt Borne and Brian Blair escalated from there.
Brian Blair continued, “As I turn around, boom! [Borne] hits me right in the back of the head. Flair saw him hit me. So, I felt the punch, and as I turn around, he grabs me and tries to tight waist me, belly to belly, and take me down. But as he does, I wind up on top of him, so he grabs my ears and starts pulling my ears and my hair down so he can bite my nose.
“I see his teeth, ahhh! My nose is getting closer, closer, and his teeth are open, and they are about to chomp down when I grabbed his lip with my teeth, and I bit his lip off! I just grabbed his lip and spat his lip out.
“He was screaming and crying like a baby, oh my gosh. And so, as he does that, he gets up and starts swinging wildly, and I started pulverizing him, bing, bang, boom, boom, boom. I got him on the ground, and the boys pulled me off of him. At this point, he goes off, and he leaves bloody.”
Despite the unmerciful assault and walking away bloodied up with half a lip, Matt Borne was relentless and would return to battle with Brian Blair not once but three times more.
“Afterward,” Blair recounts, “I’m sitting there having a drink with the guys, Flair’s going crazy talking about that, ‘Golly, and we thought Matt Borne was a tough guy!’ And as we’re talking about him, he comes back and jumps on me again! This went on three times.
“He was a tough guy because he took a heck of a beating, man. I swear, he took a heck of a beating, and he would not stop.
“We wound up- he was just crawling, trying to grab my leg, and we got to a door where it was like a slow alligator chasing me (laughing).
“Finally, he gets to my leg, and I want to kick him in the face, but I’m thinking, ‘I’m not gonna do it, I’m not gonna do it, it’s so easy to do.’
“I was really pissed at this time, and Ivan Koloff says, ‘Ah, just let him alone.’
“I said, ‘Here, just let me out.’ And I turned my back just for one second, and he hits me in the legs from behind, right in the middle of my knees, from behind, buckles me, so I go down, and he grabs my leg, and he jumps my back, and he puts his hand towards my eye. And, as he puts his hand towards my eye, Uncle Ivan (Ivan Koloff) kicks his hand away. He said, ‘No eyes.’
“After that, I got up one more time, hit him about three more times, down he was, and I left. And that was it.”
Blair concludes, “Ric Flair said that was the greatest fight he’s ever seen in his life.”
Hear Brian Blair tell the story of his bar brawl with Matt Borne aka Doink The Clown below:
Arn Anderson Shares His Thoughts on the Brian Blair and Matt Borne Fight
In a recent episode of The Arn Show, co-host Conrad Thompson asked Arn Anderson about the worst shoot fight he ever saw.
“Brian Blair and Matt Borne,” Anderson answered without hesitation. “It was in West Virginia, I want to say Charleston, and they got into a fight that started in the bar. Got separated, started again in the lobby.
“Got separated, ended up in the parking lot. Ended up with Matt Borne getting about two inches of his bottom lip bitten off by Brian Blair. Should’a saw that; it was like a dinosaur bit his bottom lip off! It then got broken up out there.”
Anderson proceeded, “I would say this fight went on, which anybody out there who’s really been in a real fight, this thing went on for about 12, 13, 14 minutes. That is a long fight! And I mean, they were pounding the piss out of each other. It was violent as anything I’ve ever seen.”
As for how things ended between Brian Blair and Matt Borne, Blair confided, “I’ve had five shoot fights with five guys in the business, and I was friends with them all afterward. I never lost a fight, I can say that, but I never started one either, and that’s because of all the stuff Hiro Matsuda and the guys taught me. He just taught me to be able to take care of myself. When push came to shove, and I had to do that, I did. So, it’s all good.”
Read our interview with Brian Blair in full where we talk about Blair’s friend Paul Orndorff, how Orndorff is doing today, the GoFundMe effort which saved his home, how he and Paul “took care of business” on the road, the assistance he’s trying to provide through The Cauliflower Alley Club, never-before-told stories of ribs and practical jokes on the road, details on the five times he got into other shoot fights with the likes of Buzz Sawyer, Doug Somers, and so much more!
These stories may also interest you:
- Doink The Clown – Troubles With The Man Behind the Paint
- SID VICIOUS and ARN ANDERSON and their Crazy, Brutal Scissor Fight
- Kevin Nash and Roddy Piper – Their Heated Backstage Fight at Slamboree ’97
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