411’s Dark Side of The Ring Report: ‘What Happened to Doink the Clown?’

-Welcome to the fourth episode of this latest season of Dark Side of The Ring. Tonight, it’s all about Matt Borne and his most famous gimmick, Doink The Clown. Let’s get to it!

-Our narrator is Chris Jericho (who dressed up as Doink once in a cool fake out moment on RAW).

-We start with video from Arkansas in 2012 and it’s Matt Borne arriving at an independent show and he is getting ready as Doink. He mentions nothing is forever and especially not this character.

-27 Years Earlier: Matt Borne is part of WrestleMania I and has a match with Ricky Steamboat. Borne’s daughter pops up and she says that Ricky was good, but her dad killed it and she thought they were really beating the crap out of each other. Her name is Tegan Osborne and as mentioned, she is the daughter of Matt Borne.

-Next is Michelle James, who is Matt’s ex-wife (married from 1993-2004). She says he met Mat after he was fired from WWE and he told her he was Doink The Clown. She asked if that meant he worked at kid’s birthday parties and he told her he was a wrestler. She scoffed and told him “that shit is fake.” As she got know and watch him though he was great as making seem so real. They had two kids together and says the other women who married him did it for the money, but she loved him and was with him up until his death. When they met, Matt was 37 and she was 21. Her first impression: “wow this guy is old.”

-Mick Foley says that Matt was extremely influential and if anyone like what he did, then they liked what Matt did. He notes that Matt was a colleague and a friend. He mentions Matt was a second generation wrestler as his dad was Tough Tony Borne. Everyone in Oregon knows Tony as he never wanted to be bigger than a regional star.

-Michelle says that Matt remembers the day his parents split because his mom said, “you go with your dad because I don’t want you, little bastard.” She believes that stayed with Matt until he died.

-Mick says he doesn’t know if his dad’s legacy helped or hurt, but it can be tough following in the footsteps of someone. He says Matt was solid and came from an era where you laid it in and made people believe.

-Tom Prichard is next and says he first met Matt in the early 1980s, and credits Tony for making Matt tough. He learned from his dad how to handle conflict and we get some old footage of Tony talking about being proud of his son.

-Matt got over in Portland and then went to Texas and then to The Carolinas. Hacksaw Jim Duggan up next and he bluntly calls Matt a bully and they didn’t get alone. Okay then! He is here to talk about Mid-South and it was full of tough guys. Watts put Duggan with Dibiase and Borne and they were called The Rat Pack. They were the kick ass heels and Prichard notes all three were incredible workers.

-Mick says Matt had a lot going for him, but was always fighting demons. B. Brian Blair is next and says all he knew about Matt was he was a product of Portland. He recalls meeting Matt in a bar and he asked him why he was messing with his girl. Blair didn’t have a girl there and Matt just blasts him from behind. He tried a suplex and Blair turned over and Borne went to bite his nose, but Blair got to him first and bit his bottom lip off. He thought that was it, but Borne started fighting so Blair beat the shit out of him and isn’t sure how he got up. Things settle down and they are having drinks and a bandaged Borne jumps on him again and as they are wrestling Borne reaches Matt’s eyes. Ivan Koloff kicks his hand and yells “no eyes.” Blair: “I guess if you have the right drugs in you, they can make you superhuman.”

-Duggan says they are in Monroe, Louisiana and he gets punched by a fan, so he socks the guy back. The fan drops so Borne lays a kick in and breaks the guy’s orbital bone. Michelle: “I kicked a guy so hard, his eye popped out.”

-Commercials!

-The fan sued Duggan, Matt and Mid-South. Michelle says that Matt told her he didn’t get in any trouble for it. Prichard says Matt was fired and Duggan was kept and he thinks that’s where the hard feelings started. Old audio of Borne talking about the incident and he says Watts used him as an example and was pegged as a bad guy.

-Borne heads to WWF thanks to some connections, but was fired within a year due to drug use. Michelle doesn’t think Matt ever wrestled sober and discusses his cocaine use. He also had to start his day smoking weed and then there were pain pills.

-Matt gets hired by WCW and becomes Big Josh, a lumberjack to play off his Portland roots. Now we meet another ex-wife, Maria (1991-93). We see video of Big Josh making his entrance with two bears heading down to ring with him. Matt had a security guard go get Maria and he asked her out for drinks. She notes he seemed nice and was very cordial. She says it happened fast and within three months she moved in with him as she wanted the family life. They had a daughter together and Matt had to work, but made it back though he was high and a little drunk.

-Vince McMahon offers him another chance and this is where Doink was born. She says it was joint character between Vince and Matt. Prichard thought it made perfect sense and tells a story about Hawk comparing Borne to Krusty The Clown with the way his hair was messed up and he was smoking cigarettes.

-Borne says it was a demented clown and he has been around enough guys to be able to play that character. Duggan notes he can’t judge as he was running around with a 2×4 yelling, “hoooo.” Foley says he knew that Matt was going to sink his teeth into becoming an Evil Clown. Michelle says that was the best character for him and it was also his favorite. Tegan says there were times she didn’t see Doink out there and instead she saw her dad. Foley says it was a gimmick, but Matt put life into it. “I did not like a lot of what WWE was doing at the time, but I did like Doink.”

-WrestleMania IX: Doink vs Crush and it’s the famous match where multiple Doinks show up. Borne was annoyed by it as he felt Vince was setting him up for failure.

-Commercials!

-Maria says Matt would take off and do somewhere for 3-4 days at a time. He was fired once again for failing a drug test and Maria wasn’t surprised. Matt says he was in Boston in a hotel smoking weed when he got the call he was fired. “Why was I doing it? Because I am an addict. It’s what we do.” Maria says Matt would say she left him because he lost his job and money, but that’s not why. She says Matt started to get angrier and drinking more and doing more cocaine. He became more abusive to her and to their daughter. He would throw lit cigarettes at her and threw her down once while she was holding their daughter. That was enough so she took off and never looked back.

-Tegan and Michelle say when that happened they were just building a million-dollar home. He had a bath tun engraved in gold with DOINK. That sounds practical! He was so depressed he lost everything he gained that he went on an 8 day coke binge and started hallucinating.

-Doink returns at the next show, but instead of Matt they use other guys under the grease paint. Foley says it was successful to a degree with Steve Keirn and Ray Apollo, but it was never as good as the original.

-Michelle brings up Dink and Foley notes they were mainstays. Duggan seems to take delight in the fact that Matt got bounced and Doink just continued along and most people never even noticed. That sent Matt off the deep end and he ended up in Ellwood City and that is where he met Michelle (Tegan’s mom).

-Michelle says Matt had issues with alcohol and drugs, but he never did drugs in front of her. He made the rent and all the bills and didn’t want Michelle working. She says that not many men talked to her and that was by design. They were in a bar and an ex spit on Michelle and Matt came running in. He pulled the guy up by his ear and when the guy got free he jumped into his car, but Matt pulled the car up by the back end. The cops show up and use mace and tazer while Michelle tells them they should probably shot him in the leg as he isn’t going to stop. He was put in jail and he kept challenging the cops. It seems he ripped the sink out of the ground in the cell.

-He ended up back in pro-wrestling and took The Doink character with him. He even showed up in ECW with the gimmick. Foley notes he was in ECW then and it was effective as the fans hated what Doink stood for, but respected Borne and thus we got Borne Again. Basically, Matt was wearing half his Doink make-up and would switch back and forth between Doink and Matt. Vince got word of what he was doing and sent legal papers to make him quit as Vince owned the character. Borne even says that he signed the copyright over to Vince. He was bitter about it and claims he never received any residuals and counter-sued. They reached an agreement where Matt couldn’t be Doink, but would get his residuals every month.

-Tegan is born and then he has a son, Matthew (also to Michelle). Michelle notes that was his second chance as he had two previous kids and never got to see them. He started to get clean and decided he needed to bring himself back. No matter how hard he tried though, addiction was always there.

-Commercials!

-Michelle says she stood by his side as he would get clean and fall back to old habits. Matt would get mean and paranoid and she knew he needed help. “He got me one time. Super good!” He accused her of cheating and next thing she knew, she was in the hospital and couldn’t see for two weeks. Damn! She says Matt didn’t even remember it and immediately apologized and she forgave him. Tegan says her dad liked to drink and would say “fucked up shit.” Michelle finally had enough and took both kids and was worried Matt would follow and kill her, but he told her he understood and let her go.

-We get some Indy footage of Matt doing some odd things at shows. Duggan says they were in White Plains, NY with 100 people and Borne wanted to use chairs and the 2×4. Jim told him they were just going to have a nice walk and talk and basically play the hits. I don’t blame Duggan. Just showing up and saying “hooo” was probably enough for the 100 people in the crowd. Borne isn’t having it and cuts a promo running down Duggan and then hits him with a legit ball shot. We have of footage of this by the way and Duggan says it was heading towards a shoot, so Matt grabbed a chair. Duggan grabbed his 2×4 and told Matt they would settle it in the back like you are supposed to. Bourne decides to just leave and walks out an emergency door. Foley laugh as he says you have to work really hard not to like Jim Duggan. He is losing it as he says “everybody likes Jim Duggan.”

-Another woman as we meet Connie Cook, who played a nurse that would hit people with a bed pan outside the ring. She was Matt’s girlfriend for a bit. She says they were both crazy and hit it off. He found her on Facebook in 2011 and he never left her. She moved to Texas with him and says that Matt took care of her sick mom. He had her back and she had his.

-Tegan says in June 2013 she got a text from her mom, reading “I think your dad is dead.” She found out via TMZ. Michelle called Connie and wanted to know what happened and to this day Tegan is sure Connie killed her dad. “She took him away from me and I hate her for it.” I wasn’t expecting this turn of events!

-Commercials!

-Connie says that Matt stole all of her mom’s drugs and was dead. Michelle is now wondering how she is supposed to take care of their two kids, who were 12 and 15. Tegan and Michelle both say that Matt called the night before his death and stated he was leaving Connie. Apparently he told Michelle if anything happens to him, to not let it go.

-Connie says the day it happened, Matt was moaning in the kitchen and fell to his knee and asked her to marry him. She thinks he is having a heart attack and just won’t tell her. She found his glasses by her mom’s pills and she noticed a bottle was moved. They were from hospice and she told Matt he needed to tell her where they were. Matt told her he would just go to jail. Later she hears a knock on the door that woke her up and a girl says Matt is laying in the hallway outside. She drug Matt to the bed and thought he was fine and just snoring, but he was overdosing. Michelle is pissed as she notes Connie did nothing.

-According to the police report, Connie was at 6:30 AM and saw Matt gurgling and had foam coming from his mouth. She called a friend and went back to bed. At 9 AM she finally calls 9-1-1 and the producers give her a chance to respond. She said she heard him all night snoring and when she found him in the morning she saw stuff coming out of his nose and called her friend who told her to call 9-1-1. She says she did not go back to bed and she did not wait until 9 AM to call 9-1-1. She talks about the paramedics showing up and working on him. A detective came and they noted 30 pills were missing, but they weren’t sure how many he took. She went to the hospital and starts breaking down talking about them putting him in the dark and wanting her to leave. “Matt hated the dark.” The official cause of death was overdose of Hydrocodone, Morphine, and an enlarged heart. The report reads “Arterioscleroti and hypertensive cardiovascular disease.” “Manner of Death: Accident.”

-It seems Matt kept his heart issues a secret and it was found when he was in WWF. They wanted to get him tested, but he didn’t want people to know. She states his heart was six times the size it should be. Again, to the report: “The heart is 710 grams and appears both globally enlarged and with disportionate left ventricular hypertrophy.” Connie notes she did everything to help him.

-Tegan says it is easy to say accidental overdose and wants to know why Connie wanted all night to call 9-1-1. She knows there was foul play. Connie is heartbroken to know Tegan thinks that and says the allegations are not true. She loves Matt to this day and wishes he was still here. The police found no evidence of criminal conduct, no evidence that she forced him to take the medication and no evidence of negligence by Connie Cook.

-Commercials!

-Next week JYD!

-June 28, 2013: Matt Borne dies for an overdose of opiates. We see photos of his children at the funeral and that is heartbreaking. Tegan says it has been terrible and she has struggled with depression. She lost a lot of friends and it made her realize why he dad did drugs.

-Back to Matt Borne at the Indy show where we started and man, did he change up The Doink character for some of those shows. Foley says that Matt lived fast and he wasn’t surprised to hear he had passed. He thinks Matt had a lot going for him, but his biggest issues with his demons. He talks Matt’s legacy and his weaknesses were exposed by the nature of the beast. Matt meant a lot to wrestling and he was at his best in those regional days where he connected and made a difference.

-Tegan and Michelle show some pictures as they remember him. “It’s all we have left of him.”

-Prichard says Matt made Doink bigger than it had any right to be. Foley says that Matt would open up about being an absentee dad. Michelle never gave up on him and knew he was a good person. She hates the horrible things her kids have to read about their dad. He made mistakes like any human being and wanted to raise his two kids. “I miss him, but they miss him way more.” Tegan lets us know she graduated with a 4.0 and is a certified public accountant. She shows off the tattoo she has of Matt on her arm and ends with, “he wasn’t perfect, but he was my dad.”

-This is one I didn’t see going like this. This was an eye opening one and I found myself sucked into this one. Anytime a child loses their father or mother at a young age, it is heartbreaking. I appreciate they got Connie’s side along with what Tegan and Michelle feel. They also did a service by including the police report and the cause of death report. Duggan, Foley, and Prichard were there to cover the wrestling and road stories. This was a good one and an easy recommendation. There is a lot to unpack with this one and I leave it up to anyone to make their own opinion on what happened. As I mentioned I didn’t expect where this episode went and perhaps it’s more well known and I just didn’t pay attention at the time. Matt seemed to fall in the trappings many do in pro-wrestling (especially in the 80s and early 90s) and could never get away from them. The tragedy is the children he left behind and it was good to hear his daughter seems to have things figured out for herself. I appreciate they have tried to end these episodes on some kind of positive note and it most cases it is through their kids. Thanks for reading!