horrorfan_1986

When I think back of the 90's WWE and who was under pushed or just wasn't treated as well as they should have been - I think of one man. It just so happens that that character is the same character who was in back to back WO's Worst Match of the Year. However, the fun loving Doink who had his own midget, Dink, isn't the Doink I'm talking about. The original Doink (Played by Matt Bourne) was dark, funny and on top of all that, a damn fine wrestler. Bourne had the match of the night at Summerslam 1993 with Bret Hart. His trilogy with Mr. Perfect to qualify for the KOTR was a highlight of the year. Perhaps the best thing was something they never even delved deep into. Early on, Bobby Heenan when commentating Doink's match, would bring up how good of a wrestler Doink was. Heenan insinuated that Doink was played by a veteran who for some reason just...snapped and began dressing as a clown.

Looking back, I really wished they would of developed that part of his backstory, instead of just making him a clown and nothing but a clown. ECW actually had the right idea. A year after being fired, Matt Bourne showed up in ECW to take place in the NWA World Title Tournament (The one where Shane Douglas threw down the title). He started off as Doink and then ripped off some of his costume in disgust (Think of Dustin Rhode's character of Seven, but it actually working). From then on, he was Bourne Again. He was sick of being forced in sports entertainment gimmicks. What I would of loved to see the Doink character do is slowly reveal what happened to him. They could of did something as easy as revealing it's Matt Bourne (I wrestled Steamboat at Wrestlemania~!) and he started wearing the clown costume because he was fired from the WWE. Realizing that the WWE is very gimmick crazy, he adopted the Doink gimmick. (Or rather started dressing up as a clown, so it's not too shoot-y). At first, everyone is believing that's it. However, Bourne starts showing signs that he's literally crazed and he's not in total control as he made it sound. I see the Doink character evolving into a mixture of Dark Doink, fun loving Doink (aka the one that was so terrible) and a crazed Bob Backlund (After he snapped).

For someone as talented as Bourne, it just seemed like such a waste to keep him as a clown.

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KenTheKiller

That sounds like such a good idea but WWE wasn't edgy enough to mention gimmicks at the time. They would barely mention it now lol.

But yeah he definitely had a lot of potential. He believes the Kliq buried him but in truth, I couldn't see WWE ever have pushing him more.

This is kind of off-topic, but do you think something similar could have been done with the Eugene character? The going crazy aspect.

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horrorfan_1986

I've always felt that the Eugene character was a great way for Nick to start out, but then he needed to drop it. There was two great times to do it. Either after Summerslam 2004 (Which was really the end of the huge push and his popularity started to slip) or ECW One Night Stand 2006. For the 2004 one, have Eugene drop the gimmick in mid interview with Bischoff. Make it all one big work how he and his Uncle Eric made a bet to see if Nick could fool all of the fans. Nick ended up proving to Eric that the fans were as dumb as they look. For ONS, have Dinsmore join ECW denouncing the Eugene gimmick as stupid sports entertainment. Both ones I believe would of gotten him over and could of kept him over, unlike Eugene.

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KenTheKiller

Yeah I really think the second one could have worked very well.

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