2023-06-24 15:32:52
The WWE Clown Death Mystery
Matt Borne, who died in 2013, was WWE’s original Doink the Clown © WWE
Martin Hoffman
4 hrs ago
Matt Borne created the memorable character of evil clown Doink in WWE, but ruined his career and personal life with excess drugs and violence. A murder suspicion hovers over his early death 10 years ago.
Anyone who followed WWE 30 years ago will surely remember Hulk Hogan, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, young “Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels. But it is also not unlikely that he has burned himself into the memory.
We’re talking regarding Matt Borne – the man who was behind one of the best and most subversive characters that the otherwise often rather flat character tableau of the WWF of the time had to offer: Doink the Clown. (NEWS: All the latest WWE news)
Not the funny, child-friendly clown, not the running gag that is often quoted and later became the character. The original Doink. The evil and spooky harlequin who wasn’t there to make you laugh. Except for a cynical one.
This week’s current episode of the award-winning documentary series “Dark Side of the Ring” recalled the ingeniously embodied role, the human depths of its actor, his early death – and the murder allegations made by his family.
Matt Borne was the son of a regional legend
Matt Borne – actually: Matthew Wade Osborne – was born on July 27, 1957 in the wrestling stronghold Charlotte in North Carolina as a show fighter in the second generation.
His father was Tony Borne, a regional legend in the west coast state of Oregon. The child of divorce, Matt, was strongly influenced by him, for better or for worse. Former WWE colleague Brian Blair (The Killer Bees) describes Matt Borne in the documentary as a “product of Portland,” the local center of the Northwestern wrestling scene.
It’s the diplomatic euphemism for Borne being a well-trained ringcrfollowing and a tough dog. But also a drinker with drug problems and a penchant for real-life fights.
Blair describes a bar fight involving a drug-induced Borne that eventually escalated to the point that he bit off part of Borne’s lower lip in self-defense. Borne still wouldn’t have stopped following that.
Borne’s behavior outside the ring was also a career obstacle for him on several occasions.
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“He never played a match sober”
In the eighties, Borne formed the hated villain group “The Rat Pack” with his later WWE colleagues “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and Ted DiBiase in the then nationally known promotion Mid-South. Borne’s biggest commitment to date ended following an escalated fight with a fan. (Ted DiBiase is now suffering from “serious” brain damage)
The supporter punched Duggan, which Duggan and Borne both fought back: Duggan punched the fan, Borne kicked his face, fractured his orbital bone and got his league sued.
The incident led to Borne’s dismissal and it also poisoned the relationship between Borne and Duggan, who remained enemies until the end of Borne’s life. Within the scene, this was felt to be very telling: “Everybody likes Jim Duggan,” noted WWE legend Mick Foley, a great admirer of Borne as a wrestler, in the Dark Side documentary.
Borne’s first WWE engagement – he was part of the first WrestleMania in New York in 1985 under his real name – ended with a scandal: he was fired a year following his match once morest Ricky Steamboat for drug use.
His ex-wife Michelle says Borne “never played a match sober” and was also addicted to marijuana, cocaine and painkillers.
Doink the Clown: A subversive stroke of genius
In 1992, six years following his first release, Borne ended up with the market leader once more via several detours and got the chance to develop the role of his life together with boss Vince McMahon: the dark Doink, who played nasty pranks on other wrestlers and especially young fans .
Borne plundered the already rich myth of evil clowns and created his own interpretation tailored to wrestling – somewhere between the horror clown Pennywise from Stephen King’s It (very present a few years earlier through the portrayal of Tim Curry in the Hollywood film adaptation), the Joker and the sarcastic Krusty from The Simpsons.
The original Doink’s performance included an intro to the opening bars of Julius Fucik’s famous upbeat circus march, which then morphed into a spooky horror theme.
Borne embodied his character perfectly, skillfully oscillating mimic and gestural between its different levels: the false cheerfulness, the demonic darkening of the face, the moment when his true self came through – and the moments when Doink was actually honestly happy: when he had saddened a child in the audience or upset another wrestler.
WWE didn’t live up to the potential
The Doink character’s potential was not fully exploited, and Borne complained early on that McMahon wasn’t using the character to the best of its ability.
For example, the Dark Side documentary reveals that Borne disapproved of his most famous match at WrestleMania IX in Spring 1993 once morest Crush – the match that ended with the punch line that another man in Doink costume (Steve ” Skinner” Keirn) misled the opponent.
Doink finally lost his distinctiveness when, in the fall of 1993 – a few months following his second major pay-per-view match once morest Bret Hart at SummerSlam – he “face-turned” in a feud with Bam Bam Bigelow and was redefined as a crowd pleaser.
Borne didn’t play this version of the character for long, he was fired in late 1993 following a positive drug test. McMahon recast the character with the otherwise little-known Ray Apollo (Ray Liccachelli), with the role later going to Steve “The Brooklyn Brawler” Lombardi.
Two marriages fell apart because of drugs and domestic violence
The documentary reveals that Borne left his life in tatters following his release: derailed by losing the job that made him prosperous – he was regarding to find a luxuriously furnished million-dollar home with a golden bathtub to build – he fell even more addicted to drugs and became violent once morest his first wife Maria and their daughter. The marriage broke up.
Borne then began a new life with his second wife, Michelle, with whom he had two more children. The marriage lasted 11 years, but Michelle eventually left him too because he mightn’t keep up trying to get clean and lapsed back into addiction and domestic violence.
As a wrestler, too, Borne was never as successful as with the Doink character: A promising new start in Paul Heymans Kultliga ECWwhere he alternated between his alter egos as “Borne Again,” came to an end when WWE’s Legal Department intervened.
In the last few years of his career, Borne played with the Doink character in mini-leagues that were under the radar – until he died of an overdose on June 28, 2013 in his adopted home of Texas.
Daughter accuses partner of murder
Borne’s death was caused by the opiates morphine and hydrocodone – drugs that were actually intended for the mother of his last partner Connie Cook, who was in need of care. A pathological enlargement of the heart, which Borne had known since his time in WWE, also played a role.
The circumstances of Borne’s death are disputed, Borne’s daughter Tegan raises accusations of murder once morest Cook in the documentary. Borne had called her and her mother the night before and announced that he was leaving her.
Mysterious: The police report notes that Cook went back to bed following noticing Borne was foaming at the mouth, but didn’t call 911 until two and a half hours later. Cook denies this in the documentary, saying she would have done everything she might in the meantime.
A police investigation ultimately found no evidence to confirm Tegan’s suspicions that Cook had planted the drugs on him. In the end, the partner was not accused of failing to provide assistance either.
The death of the unfinished WWE-Legend at the age of 55 was ruled an accident.
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