Matt Osborne

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Matt Osborne


Statistics
Ring name(s)	Matt Borne Doink the Clown Big Josh Borne Again
Billed height	6 ft 1 in (185 cm)
Billed weight	240 lb (109 kg)
Born	July 27, 1957 (1957-07-27) (age 50) Ellwood City, Pennsylvania
Billed from	Ellwood City, Pennsylvania
Trained by	Tony Borne Sandy Barr
Debut	1978

Matthew "Matt" Wade Osborne (born July 27, 1957 in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania) is a professional wrestler. Matt is a second generation wrestler, the son of "Tough" Tony Borne.^[1] He is better known by his ring name Matt Borne and best known as the first person to portray Doink the Clown.

1 Career
2 In wrestling
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 References

Following his debut in 1978, Osborne, using the ring name Matt Borne, wrestled in many independent promotions. In Mid-South Wrestling, later known as the UWF, he was allied with Ted DiBiase and Jim Duggan in a group known as the "Rat Pack".^[2]Matt not only competed in Pacific Northwest Wrestling, but also competed against Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania 1 in Madison Square Garden.

Borne is, perhaps, best remembered for his time in Texas, competing for both World Class Championship Wrestling and the United States Wrestling Association. Borne is famous for his wild parking lot brawl with Kerry Von Erich in May 1990 outside the Sportatorium, a brawl which took place under adverse weather conditions, and involved a two-by-four, chairs, and other objects. The brawl started inside the Sportatorium, and eventually carried through the fire door on the D section of the arena outside into the east side of the parking area near the Trinity River.

Osborne then signed on with WCW, where he was known as Big Josh. This character was said to be an outdoorsman who was friends with Tommy Rich and danced with bears. During his stint with WCW, Osborne won the WCW United States Tag Team Championship with Ron Simmons and the WCW World Six-Man Tag Team Championship with Dustin Rhodes and Tom Zenk.

Osborne debuted as Doink the Clown in early 1993 on one of the early episodes of RAW. He originally pulled a prank on Randy Savage, who was a commentator at the time. However, Doink's most notable feud was with Crush. He attacked Crush with a prosthetic arm on an episode of WWF Superstars, which set up a match at WrestleMania IX. During this match, another Doink (Steve Keirn) came out from under the ring and attacked Crush with another prosthetic arm, which lead to Doink's victory.

In May of 1993, Doink was given the opportunity to enter the King of the Ring tournament, but lost to Mr. Perfect in the qualifying round.

Doink would go the next couple of months mostly wrestling jobbers until Jerry Lawler hired Doink to wrestle Bret Hart at SummerSlam. Doink would lose to Bret and Lawler would turn on Doink, turning Doink face. Shortly after the turn, Borne was fired for re-occurring drug abuses (which Borne has since overcome).^[1]

Osborne would debut in ECW as Doink the Clown. The fans hated this,^[3] as ECW was viewed as an alternative to the WWF and WCW and seeing a gimmick like this made Doink a heel for a completely different reason.

After losing a match to then-ECW World Heavyweight Champion Shane Douglas, Douglas picked up a microphone and told Osborne that he was too talented to be competing under a horrible gimmick.

Douglas would take Osborne under his wing and Osborne became Borne Again. He would still come to the ring in his clown outfit, yet he didn't wear the wig and came out with only a small amount of face paint underneath his right eye.

After beating his opponents he would make them dress in clown outfits. This gimmick seemed to get Borne over, but his ECW run was short lived due to personal problems.^[3]

Since then, Osborne has wrestled on the independent circuit at several reunion shows and for various independent federations, with his last match occurring in late 2005.

Osborne occasionaly helps train wrestlers at Dean Malenko's wrestling academy while Dean is away.

Osborne reprised the role of Doink The Clown at the 15th RAW Anniversary on 10th December 2007.