10 Terrifying Wrestling Moments That Still Scare Adults

Before the descent into whacky midcard sh*te, with Ray Apollo underneath the paint, Matt Borne was incredible as the original Doink The Clown mostly lost to reduced history.

It was the perfect creepy gimmick because it was tethered to reality. Doink did not possess the supernatural powers that always look so hokey in a live arena and are never applied in a way that is to their benefit.

Doink was a skeevy degenerate who wore the clown paint, one was allowed to infer, because he was sinister and warped enough to simply want to make people uncomfortable. He was a very accomplished wrestler - his peak RAW matches were astounding, by the standards of the time - but like the best heels, he did awful things just to do them.

Bourne would locate the hard camera and stare into it with dead eyes, haunting the children on the sofa. He'd wear the smile on his face and then subvert it with a sick leer, as if to convey the idea that humanity itself was a decorative facade just because his own was lost within the external husk.

Doink was an effective daylight horror who knew that the real fear resided in the places we assume to be safe.