And I truly believe Doink the Clown is one of the most underappreciated,
underrated characters in the history of WWE.
I think the version of the Doink the Clown that we got in 1993 and
1993 only Is literally a Top 10 character of all time.
Allow me to explain 1993 is not thought of as the greatest
time in the world for WWE or for pro wrestling in general.
1993 was a big time switch up, okay?
It was a transitional period.
Hulk Hogan was gone, the Ultimate Warrior was gone, Macho Man Randy Savage was for
the most part in the commentary booth.
And we were left without the big
stars that had taken us through the last ten plus years.
The WWE hadn't quite, in my opinion,
pulled the trigger on guys like Bret Hart and
Shawn Michaels, they were experimenting, they put the title on Bret Hart.
But I don't think they ever elevated or at least at that point,
Bret Hart to the place where guys like Hulk Hogan, and the Ultimate Warrior were.
Instead what they were doing was showcasing people like Brett,
but also trying to introduce a tonne of new characters.
Throwing as much as they could at the wall to see what stuck, and one
of the things that the WWE threw at the wall was to introduce a wrestling clown.
Now, on paper Doink, The Wrestling Clown has no reason to succeed,
you wouldn't expect it to succeed.
And I think most people remember Doink, as kind of a goof,
as kind of a silly character.
They remember Doink come into the ring with Dink.
Maybe you remember the Survivor Series, we had a Dink and Wink and Pink, and
he had Jerry Lawler, and Sleazy and Wheezy and Cheesy.
But this isn't the Doink that I'm talking about,
the Doink that I'm talking about his rookie year Doink.
The Doink that I'm talking about is 1993 Doink The Clown,
a completely different Doink than the one that I think fills all
our brains when we think about this character.
So Doink shows up at the end of 1992
in WWE audiences on WWE TV shows.
Already, not the greatest sign of success,
I mean you've got a couple of you, you even have the Santino.
He showed up in a crowd for the first time,
and won the Intercontinental Championship.
But he was in the crowd one night, Doink The Clown was in
the crowd show after show, that's usually reserved for
characters like Abe Knuckleball Schwartz and Jameson,
not the who's who of WWE Hall of Famers.
But point is, that Doink would be in the audience and you'd be playing pranks
on some of the audience members and you almost thought it could be a mascot.
Is this the second coming of the Gobbledy Gooker.
Then Doink The Clown showed up at ringside, and
he would show up in the Iowa and he would start playing pranks that
were fairly mean spirited on good guy wrestlers of the day.
And you'd start to get this hint, maybe this isn't a friendly clown.
Maybe this isn't a mascot after all.
Maybe this is an evil clown.
And that's where things start to get interesting because
Doink The Clown regardless of if everybody else was saying,
this is gonna be a joke, this is not gonna work, this is gonna be so dumb.
Doink The Clown made you believe that he had evil in his soul?
You did not see a man portraying a character that
he didn't believe in when you looked at Doink The Clown.
When you looked at Doink The Clown you saw an evil clown that would
go in the ring and tear you limb from limb and then laugh about it after the match.
You believed in Doink The Clown whether you would even admit it or not, because
who wants to believe in a wrestling clown but you believed in Doink The Clown.
Because Doink The Clown in 1993 made you believe in Doink The Clown.