How can something intended to create so much happiness be a vehicle for so much fear? Doink the Clown first appeared in the WWF in the early 90s.
A character who dressed like a clown but spent the earlier part of his career pulling pranks that bordered on cruelty became prominent. From his debut came about a legitimately diagnosed phobia, Coulrophobia.
Doink –
Wrestling’s Emergence of Coulrophobia
Coulrophobia (COOl-ruh-FOE-bee-uh) is a fear (phobia) of clowns. Children and adults who fear clowns may experience extreme, irrational reactions when they see clowns in person or view pictures or videos of clowns.
The diagnosed fear of clowns is relatively new, emerging in and around the last 35 years with the emergence of films such as IT with Pennywise and the character of The Joker in Batman.
As clowns were initially intended to bring about joy, Doink would trigger deep-rooted trauma within his victims. Cruel jokes would be followed by blank and uncomfortable stares.
The initial concept of how Doink came about, according to Bruce Pritchard, would be by the late Michael Hegstrand, Hawk of the Road Warriors.
Mike Hegstrand (Road Warrior Hawk), looking at Matt Bourne, saw him as Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons. Matt had been sitting there, and he had a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.
The picture was just perfect. He had his boots halfway unlaced and was sitting in a chair. Matt kind of had a belly, and Matt could be a miserable prick.
So after the match, he’s all sweaty, he’s kind of balding a little bit and his hair’s all hanging down in his face.
He’s got the cigarette dangling out, and Mike just looks at him and goes ‘Krusty the Clown.’ And that was all that I could ever see going forward of Matt Bourne.”
Bruce Pritchard on how the Doink the Clown character first came about.
He would trip wrestlers, poke them in the eye unsuspectingly, and, in the case of Crush, attack him with a prosthetic arm unsuspectingly. With haunting music in tow, Doink would walk to the ring and even laugh in the most frightening cackle.
As little as thirteen wrestlers have played the role of Doink the Clown. But it seems the most prominent wrestler tied to Doink was as tortured as the character he was playing.
Matt Borne was a second-generation wrestler who grew in popularity in the Pacific Northwest. After a brief stint earlier in his career in the WWF, Borne returned in 1992.
Upon his return, he would debut the Doink the Clown character. Sporting a prosthetic arm, Doink would attack Crush. It was clear that this clown was no joke. In fact it was taking him lightly is what also caught fans watching off guard.
Although his time in the WWF as the Doink character was short-lived, it wouldn’t be the last of Matt Born fans would see.
The following year, Borne joined ECW, and while there, he would initially compete as Doink. But the character would almost resemble that of Sideshow Bob. He wore the Doink attire but had minimal makeup, and both his hair and beard were on display.
So, while Borne would portray variations of the haunting character outside of the WWF, the character’s legacy was carried on in a collaborative event inside the WWF.
Whether it be Steve Keirn, Steve Lombardi, Ray Apollo, or any of the other plethora of wrestlers that faced them, Doink’s antics were hard to ignore. While there was an opportunity to make Doink darker, they would see things differently.
We all have our own personalities. Vince just showed me the character and told me what he wanted to see with the gimmick, but he never said I had to do it that way.
So I played the character how I thought it would work with my personality.
You have to be your own talent when you climb into the ring, and have to be your own man out there or else it won’t work.
The fans will see right through someone who isn’t comfortable with their character.
At one point, when the character became a face as part of a Survivor Series match in 1993, Mo, Mabel, Butch, and Luke all dressed like Doink as they faced The Headshrinkers, Bastion Booger and Bam Bam Bigelow. A decision on that happening was very last minute.
“The Four Doinks. Because I didn’t know until I got to the arena that, I mean, I knew there were going to be Four Doinks, but I didn’t think that for a million years, it would be us,” revealed Oscar.
“I got there; they told me that, you know, you’ve got to go get makeup. I said, ‘makeup? Why?’ And they told me you were going to be the Doink, and it was a fun match. It was an enjoyable one, and yeah, it was great.”
Doink the Clown eventually casts the darkness away and is brought back to the light. His feuds with the likes of Jerry Lawler and Bam Bam Bigelow with Luna Vachon.
But it was Matt Borne’s interpretation that was as much a case of life imitating art. While the Doink character continued to gain traction in the WWF, Borne continued to compete as the character outside the company.
Borne had his demons, and that pain and suffering was evident when looking into the eyes of the Doink the Clown character that he portrayed.
In 1994, he wrestled a few matches as part of Midwest Territorial Wrestling and would later compete in Extreme Championship Wrestling as Doink but with a slight twist.
While sporting a green and blue clown costume, then-ECW champion Shane Douglas highlights Borne’s strengths.
In essence, Borne would be ‘Borne Again’ as he would sport a half-painted clown face highlighting his past while embracing an edgier look for the Extreme Championship Wrestling audience.
It would be a number of years before the Doink character would reappear. Wrestling had changed, and the clown character’s face or heel wouldn’t have the same appeal unless it had a darker presence.
So, while it would appear sporadically in the WWF with the different characters portraying Doink, Matt Borne would re-emerge as Doink but in what would appear to capture the haunting nature that Heath Ledger had as The Joker in the film The Dark Knight.
Doink like Matt Borne had been ‘Reborne Again’. As this Joker-inspired rendition of Doink, Borne had found a new purpose. He was set to feud with former WWF alumni Dusty Wolfe, who would also portray the Doink character, but that never took place.
