Rumble He Drew '14': 1994 How Was He Cursed?: Let's be completely honest here... the Doink character probably shouldn't have worked. A wrestling clown? It came at a time when the WWF was in a silly phase of having a large handful of its wrestlers with kayfabe second jobs. You had a clown, a garbage man, a race car driver, a plumber, a hockey player, a repo man, and so forth. However, Matt Osborne's dedication to the gimmick made it a success, both as a heel and as a face. Unfortunately for him, however, he would be fired in late-1993 after having multiple drug offenses. The gimmick was still a success, so the company kept it, putting a man named Ray Apollo in the face paint. After Doink's appearance in the 1994 Rumble, his career went into the toilet. He was given a midget sidekick named Dink, followed by two more midget sidekicks in Wink and Pink for one of the dumbest Survivor Series matches of all-time as the clowns took on Jerry Lawler and his own team of midgets (Sleazy, Queazy and Cheezy). Soon after, Doink was relegated to jobber status, losing regularly, often in squash matches, before being gone from the company altogether. As a bit of a weird "bonus" to the curse, Matt Osborne would pass away in 2013, at the age of 55, due to an accidental drug overdose. While he wasn't portraying Doink in the 1994 Rumble, it speaks to the spookiness of the "curse" that he still suffered through the years.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
