Borga Became a Legend in My Life

Ludvig Borga vs. Scott King WWF Wrestling Challenge 10/24/93 - FUN

ER: Poor poor Scott King. He doesn't even get his name announced before his beating, as Borga shoves Mike McGuirk (holy shit, Ludvig) out of the way just as she's about to. I've seen Borga shove Finkel out of the way before, but this has to be the first time Borga has physically moved McGuirk before an ass kicking. Ross is appalled and Heenan says she just shouldn't have been in the way, and should have instead been doing the announcing from the kitchen and they work a great bit around that, with Ross ignoring Heenan as Heenan keeps apologizing and then continuing the joke ("I should have said laundry room because we all know she can't cook!"). This probably reads extremely offensive but it played more like a good Charles Nelson Reilly bit about Bret Somers than an anti-woman screed. The fact is, Ludvig Borga is the world's most aggressive Roomba, just shoving his way over anything that gets in the way of his primary directive: Murder that man standing in the corner. Borga shoves a woman, a Roomba drags a cat blanket around the house. These are the same killing machines only with different strength. 

Borga goes after King's ribs with punches, and King is really great at selling rib injuries. He has a way of clutching his left arm close to his body and holding that left arm with his right, the best visual way to put over an internal injury. Hands to stomach looks too dainty and reads more like diarrhea. Clutching an arm to your body through clenched teeth and one closed eye is the kind of thing Tenryu would do to sell a rib injury. Scott King took several punches to the body, and I love how Borga mixes the angles he throws them at. My favorite punch this match was Borga standing to King's 5 o'clock and wrapping a right hand underneath King's ribcage. The flapjack uppercut looked great, and Borga has the most effectively painful looking Torture Rack these eyes have seen. 

Ludvig Borga vs. Mike Bucci  WWF Raw 10/25/93 - GREAT

ER: This was one of the best squash matches of 1993. Most memorable squash matches are remembered for their violence. If a job guy lands on his head, it's typically part of a memorable squash match. This match was one-sided and Borga has great looking offense, but Mike Bucci didn't wind up in traction. What made this so memorable was Borga's full commitment to being a sincerely hated heel. The Narcissist and later Doink face turn really left Borga as the only vocal heel on the brand who could do strong crowd work. Borga is a heel who wrestles like he openly hates the fans he's wrestling in front of, and this match was the best he's pulled that off yet. He picks one guy in the crowd, a big mustachioed guy in the front row behind camera that we don't get to see until after the match, and he rubs this guy's face in it after every single shot he takes at the future Super Nova. It plays incredibly on camera, because Borga is walking right toward the ringside camera between every move, yelling past it at this unknown object of ire. 

Borga hits a spinebuster on Bucci, lifts and drops him with a double handed choke, hammers him with beautiful rights to the body, and in between every shot he's walking over to this guy and telling him to kiss his ass. Borga runs down everything a man from Poughkeepsie might hold dear, all while effectively pounding away at Bucci. Bucci's inexperience adds to the heel heat as he looks kind of off balance when he gets thrown into the ropes, so every time Borga wasted him it felt like he was taking advantage of a man in over his head. Borga is the biggest heat machine in WWF at this point, getting even more heat than Cornette can get for Yokozuna by shouting 20x the words Borga does. The 1993 WWF crowds were responding far louder to Ludvig Borga as a heel, than they were Lex Luger as a face. Borga was getting real modern reactions, as the hatred was clear, but he looked cool delivering his hateful beatings and some fans were naturally reacting to him throwing guys like Bucci into the air and then punching them to the mat. The face reactions were loud and competed with the louder heel reactions, but this man was drawing LOUD reactions like few. He taunts the crowd like an absolute pro. He has the same annoying smug European qualities as some of the best heels in French Catch. When you see him singling out fans while not forgetting to spread plenty of hate to the rest of the fans, while also taking the time to smugly acknowledge someone's hand-drawn Finnish flag, he comes off like one of the great heels of 1993 American wrestling. Borga was a much hotter act than given credit for at the time, and this match was the hottest the act has looked in WWF so far.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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No Expectations, Borga Just Drifts and Drifts

Ludvig Borga vs. Gary Jackson  WWF Wrestling Challenge 10/10/93 - FUN

ER: Effective squash with a cool opponent. Gary Jackson worked USWA for a bit as Night Train Jackson, and does great wobbly legs selling for all of Borga's awesome body blows. Borga throws several punches under the ribs and into the kidneys, and Jackson buckles his knees for every one of them. You don't really get to see a ton of personality from 2/3 of the guys doing job work, so a guy who wobbles will stand out every time over the jobbers who just lie there. There are a shocking amount of jobbers who just lie there. Take a move, lie motionless on the mat, and occasionally do one of those full body heave sells. And here's Night Train out there going spaghetti legged on vicious punches. Sometimes Borga works with it, like when he grabs a tight side headlock after a dropped-to-his-knees Jackson is still selling and at perfect head squeezing height. Borga hits a big spinebuster, drops the point of his elbow into Jackson's chest, and finishes with the torture rack after punishing this poor man's midsection. 

Ludvig Borga vs. Tony Roy WWF Superstars 10/16/93 - FUN

ER: Tony Roy never had a chance. Borga shoves him hard into the corner during the introductions and begins a punishing series of body shots (lefts and rights, but mostly rights) and a healthy number of excellent kneelifts. Borga has gotten really good at yelling at fans while dishing out a painful beating. The fans respond to him in ways they don't respond to other heels, because he's good at keeping them engaged and - while he doesn't have a deep moveset - he mixes up his offense between matches enough that he's not just going out there working the same thing in the same order (and this sets him apart from guys like Mr. Perfect or IRS). He throws Roy up with a flapjack and then uppercuts him in the stomach on his way down, and while it doesn't really read as cool as sounds, it's still a cool ass thing to put in a match. His elbowdrop looks great, and I really love how he uses the hard shots to the body to directly set up the torture rack. The fact Borga looks so unpleasant and angry through all of his squashes only makes them better. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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If It's Rest Borga Needs, He'd Rather Be Dead

Ludvig Borga vs. Rich Myers WWF Wrestling Challenge 9/19/93 - FUN

ER: A nice simple meat and potatoes Borga squash, working slowly with more trash talking. He's good about not using the exact same movesets in similar order (you can pick up a lot of habits from watching specific guys working squashes), and instead makes small offense changes depending on how he's going to finish. That's really the quickest way a good big man can become a great big man, and was instrumental in Mark Henry's leap to great worker. Here, Borga works a lot of hard kneelifts that believably lift Myers off his feet, and he didn't go to one knee lift in his Superstars match that aired the day before (against PJ Walker). The kneelift is one of his best strikes and it's cool that he has enough of a repertoire to know what things he can keep or drop match to match. Myers is game to be hit in the ribs a bunch, the high elbowdrop looked great, and all of the knees to the ribs lead to the cool torture rack finish. 

Ludvig Borga vs. Rod Bell WWF Wrestling Challenge 9/26/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: GREAT squash match. This was the most cocksure Borga has looked in a WWF ring. A man really owning the ring and getting the exact reaction a top heel should be getting. He gets in the ring and quickly walks straight up to Bell and clotheslines him hard, then holds him by the arm a few times to land several uppercuts to the kidneys and ribs. He jams his knee in Bell's stomach in the corner and holds him up in the air for a 15+ second vertical suplex. Great high elbowdrop, and nails him with the diving lariat but interestingly opts to keep the match going for more punishment. He does some great trash talking throughout this whole beatdown, and is practically strutting around the ring drawing heat. It's brilliant, a truly great, confident, powerful heel performance. He lands more body blows and puts the (good sport) Bell away with the torture rack. This is the kind of memorable heel squash that makes fans want to see you get your smug bell rung, and you love to see it. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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What's the Best WWF Lex Luger Match? Is it with Backlund?

Lex Luger vs. Bob Backlund WWF Wrestling Challenge 5/2/93

ER: This was good, the proper way to work a basic face vs. heel KOTR qualifying round match, only making me wish we got way more heel Luger in WWF. Backlund flusters him to start, immediately going for a nice inside cradle and high angle backslide, sweeping Luger's legs out from him as he charges in, and the crowd is fired up by the simple heel/face formula. Luger is also someone really great at complaining his way down the aisle when he is flummoxed, really knows the level of ham to be employing on those aisle walks. We've all seen a ton of wrestlers do aisle walks, but Luger's body language stands out in a specifically strong way. He's got the perfect posture of a man with all of the physical advantages anyone could possibly ever need, yet still finding every reason to act like he's at the disadvantage. I love how Backlund also immediately picks up where he left off when Luger gets back in the ring, immediately getting him in the corner and about to mount punches, and I loved Luger's sharp back elbow out of the corner that finally put him in control. Luger concentrates mostly on elbow strikes until Backlund's comeback, which is something I think Luger does well.

Backlund had weird timing in 1993. At first I wasn't sure where the cross-ups were coming from, but the more I go back and watch '93 Backlund the more I see guys getting crossed up by his timing. He releases too quickly on hip tosses (following through far too quickly for anyone to have completed their bump) and his dropkick positioning is too far back. He did these same two things to Razor Ramon in their WrestleMania match and it made both of them look like goofs. Luger handled it better here than Razor did there, and the finish of this one is strong for a count out. Luger pushes Backlund off to the floor after Backlund runs him into the ropes with a prawn hold - Backlund taking a real nice crashing bump through the ropes to the floor - and when Backlund gets back on the apron Luger just annihilates him with the metal plated elbow. Backlund flies deep into the aisle and there is no chance of him making it back in time to beat the count. Luger was awesome during the ref's count, acting exhausted while draping his arms over the ropes, like he had just been through a war. Big fan of this match. A well played qualifier.

Lex Luger's best WWF match was not with Bob Backlund, but with a couple more minutes it certainly could have been. They had great chemistry, and I'm excited to see how their Raw match from a year and a half later plays out, with the heel/face roles reversed. 

1. Lex Luger vs. Tito Santana WWF Mania 3/20/93

2. Lex Luger vs. Bob Backlund WWF Wrestling Challenge 5/2/93

3. Lex Luger vs. Crush WWF Raw 4/26/93

4. Lex Luger vs. Mr. Perfect WWF WrestleMania IX 4/4/93

5. Lex Luger vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan WWF UK Rampage 93

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It's Maybe Cold Outside, But in Ludvig Borga the Fire is Burning

Ludvig Borga vs. Tony DiMauro WWF Superstars 7/24/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: This was Borga's WWF debut, and he shows up with no hype whatsoever. There's mention of his debut at the beginning of the show, and when it's time for his match he's just described as a new wrestler from Helsinki. There was no inset interview, no coming soon videos, not even his name on the entrance screen; just Borga coming out and Vince telling the TV audience that he's from Helsinki. They do the exact same thing to the Quebecers on this same episode, debuting them with no features or word that The Mountie was coming back with a chubby friend. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have told you too much about Finland when I was 12, and I'm not sure how it related to pro wrestling or why it was important. But this was a great debut, and it's kind of cool how it came with no warning. DiMauro doesn't get an introduction, because Borga fast walks to the ring and without slowing down storms up behind DiMauro and deadlifts him into a hard back suplex. DiMauro is a big guy with a good build, and it's smart to debut Borga against a big guy, as it just made him look more badass quickly demolishing this guy. He is efficient and violent, hits a hard back elbow and a truly great headbutt (one of the finest I've seen hit in WWF), swings hard for DiMauro's head on a missed clothesline, really comes off like a monster. He also misses a fast avalanche and takes a fast bump on a DiMauro clothesline, which felt like a generous thing to do in his debut. But, then he absolutely wastes DiMauro with a diving clothesline, capping off a super explosive debut. 

Ludvig Borga vs. Jason Headings WWF Wrestling Challenge 7/25/93 - FUN

ER: I don't know who Jason Headings is, but he certainly earned his keep here. Borga would have been a total stranger to this crowd, but it's kind of cool to give a guy two weekend showcase squashes with no prior TV build, kids at home watching a giant angry faced Finnish man on Saturday, then seeing the same guy wreck someone else on Sunday. Borga does this great thing where he storms out and immediately goes after his opponent, not waiting for the bell. He lifts Headings up by the throat and drops him flat, clubs him, then picks him up in a vertical suplex and holds it for at least 15 seconds. Headings lands a stiff lariat that doesn't budge Borga, and when Headings gives it another shot he gets folded in half by a Borga clothesline. The bump looked like it surprised Headings more than anyone else, as he was clearly going to do a folding bump off the clothesline, but I don't think he was expecting Borga to hit him so hard, so his momentum got carried in an unexpected way. It's not like Borga swung for the fences, but he really hooked him and the fold looked awesome. Borga DOES swing for the fences on his next clothesline, but it is meant to miss (luckily Headings ducked), but Borga turns around and hits his flying clothesline for the quick win. If I was a kid and saw these two Borga squashes on back to back days, I would have immediately thought this guy was a main event threat. Curious to see how they handle him on Raw.  

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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