10 Wrestling Gimmicks Created By The Last People You’d Expect
10. Doink The Clown
Who You Think Created It: Vince McMahon or Matt Borne himself.
Who Actually Created It: According to Bruce Prichard's 'Something To Wrestle With', it was actually Hawk from The Road Warriors/Legion Of Doom who first conceptualised a wrestling clown. He thought the idea had legs, and eventually swayed Prichard and McMahon into giving the gimmick a shot.
Weirdly, Doink The Clown didn't debut until after Hawk had left the WWF in late-1992. Borne was the perfect candidate to go under the grease paint, and his menace brought the character to life. Nobody knew at the time that Hawk had anything to do with it.
Prichard admitted that the original vision for Doink's persona was a more miserable, melancholy circus clown. Borne brought a prankster mentality into things and mixed that with his own dry sense of humour to create a cult favourite.