10 Fascinating WWE King Of The Ring 1994 Facts
9. Doink The Clown Substituted For Earthquake In A Qualifier
En route to his eventual King of the Ring victory, Owen Hart qualified for the tournament on the May 23 edition of Monday Night Raw with a win over Doink the Clown. The match was a decent little TV affair, concluding with Doink losing on a distraction finish (they've been a staple forever!) when Jeff Jarrett arrived to try and kidnap his sidekick Dink. Ahh, the nineties.
Doink was actually a substitute for Earthquake, who had re-emerged on the WWE scene in the spring of 1994, taking part in a mammoth feud with Yokozuna. Sometime in the week before the match, the real-life John Tenta quit the organization, allegedly unhappy with being asked to lose cleanly to Yokozuna at house shows in California.
Grainy footage of one of those losses was aired on WWE programming to give Tenta an injury-out, explaining his very real absence.