While the early-1990s happened to be a time of wild and crazy gimmicks, most of them were too wild and crazy, and they didn't work. With Doink The Clown, we saw another gimmick that should have been a failure. It was a wrestling clown, dressed in complete clown attire, green wig, red nose, and the whole nine yards. To everyone's surprise, though, Doink was a success, and it was all because of Matt Osborne. Osborne was a journeyman, but when he donned the face paint and put on the clown get-up, it was magic (no pun intended). Debuting as an "evil" clown just made the entire thing better, as he would play pranks on children in the audience, making them cry. Through all of the gimmickry, Osborne was actually a solid in-ring worker, as well, which is certainly something he doesn't get credit for. No, he didn't win any titles while with the WWF, but he took the proverbial chicken shit and made his best possible chicken salad out of it. As an added bonus, Osborne's ECW work was also very well-received. Wrestling as Borne Again, he would paint part of his face in the Doink makeup, with the implication being that he had a personality disorder after all that time spent as Doink. He would defeat his opponents and then dress them up as clowns, in a great touch. It's a shame that his personal demons derailed his career, and ultimately cost him his life, because we could have seen bigger things for him.
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.
