Ducks Gameday: Doink

So I guess we're just a wrestling blog now? Ducks @ Hurricanes.

By Jer Jer Jer Feb 12, 2015, 5:00am PST

Last week when the Sharks were stuck playing the Hurricanes, Stace decided to forgo the boring process of writing about the Carolina franchise and instead wrote about North Carolina-born Ric Flair. It was a good strategy on her part, and since I can't bring myself to write about the Hurricanes either I decided to write about another one of wrestling's greatest personalities, also from Carolina.

Matt Osborne, who originally played the Doink the Clown gimmick, was born in Charlotte. His in-ring persona is one of the stupidest things the WWF/E did, on a long list of really stupid things. Which is why he's so great.

The gimmick went on to do a bunch of idiotic things, such as the totally offensive "Dink" sidekick character...

When Matt Osborne was fired from the WWF for repeated drug abuse issues (because, you know, how could an evil clown not be suffering from chemical dependency problems?), they just replaced him with some other dude in clown makeup. But Osborne went on to perform in other wrestling franchises, including the best wrestling promotion ever, ECW. While there...

Osborne appeared (as Matt Borne) in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) for several matches as Doink in a blue and green clown suit, setting up an angle where ECW champion Shane Douglas criticized Vince McMahon for turning a talented wrestler like Borne into a comic relief character, and claimed that he knew how to bring out Borne's full potential. Borne then made a few appearances with Douglas as "himself", sporting his face half-painted with the Doink makeup. His attitude insinuated that he had developed borderline personality disorder from having been forced to wrestle as a clown; after winning matches he would dress his opponent in clown accessories to humiliate them. His ring name under this gimmick was "Borne Again".

Pretending to be a clown made him go crazy? Okay!

Unfortunately, Osborne died of an OD in 2013. Bummer.

Anyway, here are some Doink GIFs...