[Laughing]
I might have a little surprise for you tonight.
Matt Borne was a terrifying clown.
[Maniacal laughing]
Vince McMahon got this gimmick, Doink...
And he's like,
"Oh, I know the perfect person to do this."
And, he told Matt, "You're gonna make this
character work for me." And, I mean, look what he did.
Why make children cry? What is that get ya?
Matt was a maniac. Maniac Matt was a very fitting name.
[Announcer] Maniac Matt Borne.
Matt, Matt... [Laughing]
[Announcer] Matt Borne in charge right now.
He fired up, brother. But he was solid.
Before putting on the clown suit,
Matt Borne was a second generation wrestler with
a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.
Yes, baby, that's right.
But despite his success as one of the WWF's
most iconic stars,
Matt's bad decisions and bad habits
would continue to haunt him.
Everybody has problems out there in the real world.
It's no different in the world of professional wrestling.
I can just see him in the back, having a cigarette,
like Crusty, going, "Yeah, I whooped his ass, didn't I?"
There's no silver lining here.
His demons get the best of him and,
it was just all downhill.
When he did drugs,
he was a completely different human being.
He liked oxys, he liked steroids,
he liked cocaine, yes.
And I didn't even know he was on crack.
A clown in the ring whose violent tendencies
ran deeper than the grease paint.
When you see a headline about Doink the Clown
being on drugs, fighting...
you just think he's a terrible person.
I tried to make him realize that you don't have to
do drugs, you don't have to get violent.
We all know you're tough. Just be you.
Because I did love him.
And in the end, his tragic death
would leave some still looking for answers.
Nobody wants to believe that it was an accident.
I don't believe it.
There was 110% foul play.
♪
[Cheering & applauding]
♪
I mean, this is the biggest crowd in history, 1.2 million.
Nobody wants to lose in front of that many people, Tito.
-Absolutely! -[Match bell]
It was my dad, wasn't it?
Yeah, I watched it, it was phenomenal.
From Portland, Oregon...
Matt Borne!
Matt Borne looks in good shape, himself,
you know, he's a second generation wrestler.
He just- no offence to Steamboat, like,
he was obviously good, but my dad just killed it, like,
the way he hit the ropes, the way he hit the floor.
Like, I actually believe that they beat each other up.
[Announcer] Matt Borne is not done yet.
My dad loved his job.
He didn't just do it to be famous.
He actually loved what he did,
and he was so frickin' good at it.
My name's Tegan Osborne, and I am the daughter
of Matt Osborne, Doink The Clown.
Steamboat is, here he comes! Wow!
Some 15 feet across the ring, he got him!
[Match bell ringing]
I actually met Matt in '93, in Ellwood City.
He had just gotten fired from WWE.
He definitely looked rough.
Looked like he partied a lot, put it that way.
And, when I first met him, he's like,
"I'm Doink The Clown." I'm like, "What,
do you go to kids' birthday parties, or...?"
And he's like, "I'm a pro wrestler."
And I'm like, 'Yeah, that shit's all fake."
♪
But, Matt just made it look so real to me.
♪
My name is Michelle James,
and I was married to Matt Osborne...
until- well, until his death.
We weren't together, but we were friends.
And, we have two kids.
You know, the other women that married him,
married him, obviously, for the money.
I didn't, like, I loved this man, I really did.
He was 37. I was 21.
So, my first impressions were, wow, this guy's old.
But, he was still good at it.
[Announcer] Here's Borne!
Matt was hugely influential...
not just to me, but by extension anyone who
ever saw my work and liked it,
is, in a way, admiring the work of Matt Borne.
My name is Mick Foley.
I'm a three-time WWE champion,
known as the Hardcore Legend.
And Matt Borne was a colleague and friend of mine.
I saw in him what I hoped to one day be.
You don't just play a character,
you inhabit the character.
You had to believe it, yourself.
He was as second generation wrestler that respect had
been instilled in him by his dad, "Tough" Tony Borne.
Tony was quite content with being a Portland wrestler,
and he was proud of it.
Until this day, if you say "Tough" Tony Borne,
everybody in Oregon knows who he is.
Matt grew up with his dad, actually,
because his mom and dad divorced when he was 10.
He remembers the day they split up.
His mom said, "You go with your dad because
I don't want that little bastard."
And, that stayed in Matt's head
probably 'til the day he died.
He had so much anger in him, and passion in him.
I would consider him similar to the Incredible Hulk, yes.
Like, that was just my dad.
He was 6, 6"1. He was just thick.
His hands were thick. His neck was thick.
Everything about my dad was just bigger.
I don't know whether his dad's legacy helped or
hindered Matt, but it was a pretty big name to live up to.
It's difficult being the child of a wrestler.
Okay, we got dad and his dad.
"Tough" Tony Borne and Matt Borne.
Two legends that are no longer here, but...
This is one of my favourite pictures 'cause
he just looks happy.
Matt was solid.
He was of an era where you laid it in,
and you made people believe.
Matt made you work in the ring.
The term that's coming to my mind is, "Whirling Dervish".
He sold pain differently,
and he was in constant motion.
Well, I certainly think Matt's father had
an influence on making Matt tough.
My name is Dr. Tom Prichard, and I first met
Matt Borne in the early 1980s.
-Tommy Prichard! -[Cheering]
Matt could be abrasive.
He could be confrontational.
[Chuckling] He could be...
out of his mind.
We were both young in the business back then,
but Matt had grown up there.
He learned a lot of it through his father,
but his father came up through the ranks with
these guys who were even more insane.
So, Matt's learning from his dad,
how to handle conflict and,
not everybody would appreciate that.
Well, I don't think any father could be
any prouder of his son than I am of mine.
After establishing himself in Portland,
Matt begins a tour of the territories that make up the
wrestling world, building a name and reputation
across the country.
Matt Borne did the regional territories.
Introducing Matt Borne!
And he got over everywhere he did,
and he got over in Portland.
Tony Borne and Matt Borne!
He got over in Texas.
Texas heavyweight champion, Matt Borne!
He got over in Carolinas.
Well, first off, I gotta say, Matt Borne and I-
from the time I met him- did not get along.
He was a bully, in my opinion.
Ho! Hey, folks!
I'm WWE all-fave'r, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan!
From the golden age of wrestling!
"Hacksaw" Jim Duggan!
Mid-South, at that time, was a snake pit of tough guys.
And back then, six-man tags were pretty big.
The Freebirds were really, really hot.
Of course, the Von Erichs were hot.
So, Bill Watts decided to put together a six-man tag,
and of course, he had two second generation guys with
Matt Borne and Dibiase, and he obviously saw something
in me and put me with those guys who were
already pretty established...
and formed The Rat Pack.
One for all, all for one.
We're The Rat Pack, man.
Every night, you're throwing punches,
you're blocking punches. You're getting potato'd.
We weren't the babyface heels or the crybaby heels.
We were the kick butt heels.
[Announcer] It's busting loose again!
All three were incredible performers,
incredible workers.
They didn't have a chance against us.
Matt seemed to have a lot going for him,
but he was always...
fighting those demons.
This Borne is a very aggressive wrestler-
Oh, beautiful suplex!
I only knew Matt Borne through reputation.
Hi, this is B. Brian Blair,
retired professional wrestler.
I heard that Matt was a
product of the Portland territory,
and that's about all I knew about Matt,
until we had met in this bar.
The place was packed full of the boys.
And Matt comes up to me- Matt Borne now-
he's new in the territory and he comes up to me and
he says, "Hey, why are you messing with my girl?"
I looked at Matt, and I said,
"I'm not messing with your girl, Matt.
I don't- I don't have a girlfriend here.
I don't know what you're talking about."
He seemed like he was a little, you know,
jacked up, you know, just...
very big eyes, and I kind of think that Matt
wanted to establish himself as a tough guy.
And, he thought that I was gonna be the guy that
he was gonna establish himself on.
So, all of a sudden, I turn around and, boom,
Matt hits me from behind, and he goes to suplex me,
and when he did, I turned in mid-air and
landed on top of him.
And when I was on top of Matt,
he grabbed my ears and he's pulling my head down.
He's got his teeth wide open, I can still see his teeth,
you know, he's getting ready to bite my nose.
And as he goes to bite my nose,
I saw his lip sticking out, so I went down and bit
his bottom lip right off and spit his lip off.
And so, I'm on top of him, and you know,
I punch him, and he's like a zombie.
And, I thought it was over.
A few minutes later, he comes back,
jumps on me again. [Raspy exhale]
I wind up beating him up really good this time.
I mean, I hammered this guy.
How he ever got up, I don't know.
He was live, and I mean all the way live.
This was un-human.
And, a little while goes by now and people are
buying me drinks and they're laughing and,
all of a sudden- I can't believe it-
frickin' Matt jumps on me again.
He's all bandaged up.
This time, as I'm trying to drag him towards the door,
he hooked my right leg somehow and I fell forward.
And, as I fell forward, I felt him on my back
and then I felt a hand like reaching for my eyeball.
♪
And there's Ivan Kolov right at the doorway and,
Ivan kicked Matt's hand and said,
"No eyes," which I'm very grateful for because
Matt could've pulled my eyeball out.
I mean, he was like... electricity.
He was bleeding all over the place-
from his eyes, from his nose, from his mouth.
I guess if you have the right drugs in you,
they can obviously make you superhuman because
that was not a human.
Matt's violent behaviour outside the ring is already
causing problems with his coworkers,
but an incident at ringside will bring his time in
The Rat Pack to an end.
Matt Borne, ready to get in there and
kick somebody in the teeth.
He's a man who's been well schooled.
It was Monroe, Louisiana, coming out of the ring.
And again, I'm 280 pounds, I'm jacked up,
I'm pushing 505 on the bench, I'm blown up.
I'm blowing snot and steam and sweat,
and I'm coming out of the ring,
I just got done kicking butt.
I'm going through the crowd- Boom!
I get popped. We were bad guys.
People didn't like us back then, brother.
They hated us, you know. Boom!
I popped the guy right back.
He went down, I kept on going.
But when he went down, Matt put a boot to him.
Broke his right front orbital lobe.
"I kicked him so hard his eyeball fell out."
♪
Following a match in Monroe, Louisiana,
Matt Borne takes an altercation with
a fan in the crowd too far.
Ah, so the guy, he sued me.
He sued Matt, and he sued the company.
And I asked him, I said, "Did you go to jail?"
He was like, "No, I didn't get in trouble at all."
Matt got fired, Duggan was kept.
And, I think that's where the hard feelings
might have come out on Matt's side.
Though Matt leaves Mid-South under a cloud,
his talent and connections land him a job with
the World Wrestling Federation.
But less than a year into his contract,
he's fired once again, this time, for drug use.
I don't think Matt ever was sober.
He was always snorting coke.
I mean, he'd have to start his day smoking weed.
Maybe sometimes pain pills, if he had 'em.
I think it's the lifestyle.
You know, they would go out and drink.
Well, that would lead to this.
Oh, let's try that.
In spite of the setback,
Matt lands on his feet again as he's hired by
Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling,
and given a gimmick inspired by his northwest roots.
Big Josh was a lumberjack.
That was his character.
He was kind of a bad guy, but yet, in a sweet way.
[Laughing]
My name is Maria, and I am Matt Borne's ex-wife,
from way back when.
I was with a friend of mine, and we were at a match.
And, Matt, evidently, sent one of the security guys out
to get me, said he wanted to meet me.
So, I went back and, he introduced himself,
and invited my girlfriend and I out for a drink.
He seemed nice, he was...
very cordial.
It was pretty fast. It was...
probably within about three months that
he asked me to move down.
So, I quit my job and I moved.
And, you know, "I want the whole thing.
I want the wife, the kids, things like that."
Well- [Laughing]-
I was to be induced, in the hospital,
so I had an appointment to go in at 10:30 in the morning.
Matt went out the night before, and never came home.
He showed up just before my daughter was born-
high, a little drunk.
But he showed up.
When he was with WCW,
he had an offer from Vince McMahon.
So, he took that job.
With a second chance at the WWF,
Matt lands yet another opportunity
to reinvent himself.
From what I understand, they created Doink together.
Doink was a clown. [Laughing]
Doink was a crazy-looking clown.
[Laughing] With green hair.
When I first heard of how Doink The Clown came about,
I thought it made perfect sense because Hawk,
from The Road Warriors, was looking at Matt 'cause Matt,
you know, smoking a cigarette after his match,
boot half unlaced, his hair all a mess
and he's sweating, and is like,
"We've got our own Crusty over there."
[Exhaling] Crusty the Clown.
I could pull a better cartoon out of my a-ha-ha!
Hey, whoa!
It's not what I would think of as an ideal character
for a wrestler, but...
seemed to take off pretty good.
As far a technical wrestling is concerned, knowing holds,
knowing counters and what have you,
Doink is right up there with the best of 'em.
Doink The Clown considered one of the greats!
But why dress up in this ridiculous-looking outfit?
What does that get you?
I think the little ones were scared,
like this evil, but happy clown.
I can't criticize anybody, with a 2x4 and a hoe.
Oh!
Whatever works.
I mean, and Doink got over pretty good.
As soon as I heard that Matt Borne was going to WWE,
not as a clown, but as an evil clown, I thought,
he's going to sink his teeth into this.
Doink The Clown having fun!
If they don't have a sense of humour, that's their problem!
If I laugh, that's all that matters!
It was the best character he ever did.
Doink was his favourite.
My dad was just goofy. He looked scary,
but he was like a big, goofy teddy bear.
So, that also probably helped him do Doink because
I see some of that when he wrestles, and I'm like,
damn, like that's- I don't think that's Doink,
I think that's my dad.
He would just look in the mirror and kind of
practice saying this and saying that.
I am no more...
than an instrument of nature...
a product of my environment.
It was a gimmick,
but Matt breathed life into this gimmick.
I did not like a lot of what WWE was doing at that time,
but I did like Doink The Clown.
And Doink! Oh! Forget about it.
"Well, by God, I may be a clown,
but I'm gonna rub your face in the mat,
I'm gonna beat you up,
and it's gonna be funny to me."
[Laughing]
WrestleMania IX, it was frickin' phenomenal.
Doink is wrestling.
[Announcer] Doink the Clown!
He's losing, and he keeps trying to go
underneath the stage, and...
all of a sudden, this other Doink The Clown pops up.
♪
They beat the shit out of Crush at the end,
and I'm like, holy shit, like,
that came out of nowhere.
And then they did the mirror.
He felt like, he don't know why Vince did that.
He felt like he was being set up for failure.
And then he was right. He called it.
As Doink The Clown rules the WrestleMania ring,
the inner struggles of Matt Borne will soon
bring his turn in the spotlight to an end,
even as Doink lives on.
As Matt Borne enjoys the highest levels of
wrestling fame, his demons threaten to destroy
everything he's worked to create.
There were times when he would take off, go somewhere.
Didn't see him for three or four days.
It happened a lot.
He was fired for drug abuse.
He tested dirty and Vince let him go.
Matt tried to blame everyone else
except himself for that, but...
I, I wasn't surprised.
As he would tell it, he lost his job and
I left him because he no longer had his job,
but that wasn't the case.
He started to get really...
angry, and drank a lot more.
Seemed to be going out a lot more.
And, I did know he was doing, doing a lot of coke.
He became very physically abusive to me...
and my daughter.
He was sitting on the couch- he was a smoker,
and he was just complaining and bitching and, you know,
about this and that, and then he would just take cigarettes
and he was throwing these cigarettes, lit cigarettes,
at me, you know, and...
came over and he grabbed me and pulled me off the chair-
with my daughter in my arms.
She was only a couple months old.
She went flying, and that's when I knew,
I can't do this, and I can't do this to her.
And, I packed her up, both on our back.
One bag, and drove off.
I tell people the story and they're like,
"What? Really? You were what?
You were married to who?" [Laughing] A lot of people,
when you tell them that, they're impressed.
And it's like, no, don't be impressed.
It's not a good story. Not a good story at all.
I mean, he literally had a
million-dollar home being built.
They had just moved into it.
He had his bathtub engraved with 18-karat gold, "Doink".
He was still proud of Doink, but he really struggled.
At the end of the day, I know deep down it killed him
because he knew he was good,
and it got fucked up over drugs.
The day he went home, as he got fired,
he said he stayed up for eight days straight and did
nonstop coke, and started hallucinating because
he couldn't believe he lost everything he just gained.
Though Matt Borne has been fired,
the character of Doink The Clown
makes his return at the very next show.
Only this time, there's another wrestler
under the grease paint.
A character cannot usually be readily replaced.
But in this case, I think the sentiment was he's a clown.
We'll put someone else in the exact same makeup,
and it was successful as portrayed by Steve Keirn,
and later by Ray Apollo.
But it was, ah, it was never as good as it was
when Matt wore the paint.
They figured since Steve did this with Matt,
that maybe he could pull it off.
Then they brought Dink,
'cause they were trying to keep it alive.
I mean, Doink The Clown and Dink,
they were mainstays.
You can stick anybody in a Doink suit,
and it's a great character that way.
So, Matt came and gone, and a lot of folks
don't even realize he came and gone.
And that's when he went...
way down.
How he came to Ellwood City, I don't know 'cause
it's such a small town, but it was meant to be.
That's where he met my mom.
He worked for the telemarketing company
right around the corner.
He went from a millionaire to us, you know,
like just making a weekly cheque and...
it didn't work with him up there.
He had some issues, you know,
with his alcohol and his drug addiction,
which he didn't do in front of me,
but I still knew there was something
weird about him, right.
You know, he paid the rent, he paid the bills.
He didn't want me working, he didn't want me socializing.
Not too many men talked to me, put it that way.
And that's the way Matt wanted it.
He knew what he was doing.
One night we were at a bar, and my ex-boyfriend ended up
walking in and came up and spit on me for some reason.
And I saw Matt coming at him,
and I'm like, "Dude, you need to run."
Well, Matt picked him up by his earlobes.
Legit, earlobes, off the ground.
And was screaming in his face,
spitting all over him 'cause he didn't have
his two teeth here.
The guy went out, got in his car.
Matt had the back of his car lifted up.
The two wheels off the ground, spinning like crazy.
And he's holding the car there.
And the cops came.
They maced him, tased him.
I'm like, "Might want to shoot him in the leg.
He's not gonna stop." So then they put him in jail and,
he kept telling 'em, "Take your badge and your guns off,
fight me like a man." And that's when
he ripped the sink out in the jail cell.
Like, literally ripped it out of its plumbing.
Stripped of the beloved character he brought to life,
Matt returns to the wrestling business,
but the business has changed.
Nobody wanted Maniac Matt Borne.
Nobody wanted Big Josh the lumberjack.
They all wanted Doink.
I mean, he still had the costume,
and he knew how to put the makeup on.
He could do it himself.
Matt even takes his Doink character to the last place
anyone would expect a clown, the violent renegade company
known as Extreme Championship Wrestling.
This is ECW!
That clown is in the wrong place.
I was in ECW when Matt Borne came in.
And it was effective because on the surface,
ECW fans hated it because it was Doink The Clown.
This is ECW!
But underneath that hatred, there was that level of
respect because he was Matt Borne.
How does it feel to live in my hell?
[Maniacal laughing]
I think the Borne Again gimmick was half clown,
half Matt Borne.
Vince McMahon found out he was on all these
independent promoters' cards-
'cause it was his copyright, it was.
So, Vince McMahon sent legal papers.
Midwest Territorial Wrestling!
Ha-ha! It's the best!
Ooh-ooh!
So, Vince was like, "Alright, that's fair.
But you can't use Doink,
and you get your residuals every month."
As Matt struggles to rebuild his career,
his home life is upended by the arrival of
two more children.
I can remember when Tegan was born.
He looked at her and he looked at me, and he said,
"She's gonna be something someday."
And he adored her.
And of course, his boy, my son, Matthew,
he adored him too.
Because that was his second chance.
He had two other kids.
He didn't get to see them, he didn't get to raise them.
But me and him, when we ended up having two kids,
they were his life.
I just try to remember the good times.
And when he was clean,
he was a completely different human being.
I mean, he was so put together,
has nothing negative to say.
I mean, he was my dad.
I think he thought, "I gotta bring myself back because
I'm not myself anymore."
Like, "I'm a wrestler, that's what I do."
Though striving to reclaim his glory in the wrestling
industry, Matt's battles with addiction continue to
threaten his aspirations.
Though Matt struggles to be a good father and family man,
his ongoing issues with drugs and alcohol
make him unpredictable and dangerous.
He went and got clean a few times,
and I stood by his side the whole time,
because everybody else just washed him away
like he was nothing.
If he was on too much drugs or too much alcohol,
he would just get very violent, mean, and be crazy.
I could be upstairs sleeping with my son, he'd be like,
"Why were you out tonight with so-and-so?"
I'm like, "What?" I thought, this guy needs help.
Like, I just can't turn my back on him.
He got me one time, super good.
He went to the gym- he would go to the gym
for like two, three hours a day.
So, I was just reading the newspaper on our couch.
He walked up the steps,
accused me of cheating on him.
The next I know, I'm in the hospital.
He beat me up real good.
I couldn't see for two weeks.
My eyeballs were shut, he broke my nose.
And yes, you're probably gonna say,
"Why did you go back with him?"
Down in my heart, like the next day he saw me-
after he got out of jail- he was like,
"What happened to your face?
Did I do that?" He literally don't remember any of it.
He said, "I am truly, truly sorry."
And I forgave him.
As Matt's drug use becomes even more extreme,
his downward spiral intensifies.
Him and my mom fought.
You know, he loved to drink.
And when he drank, he said some really F'd up shit.
Finally, one day, I don't know what it was...
I grabbed both their hands, I said,
"Matt, I can't do this anymore.
I have been here through thick and thin with you."
I said, "I'm not taking anything with me.
I am done."
She hurried up, packed the bag.
She was scared. I remember her being so scared.
And I walked out the door and he didn't come after me,
'cause I thought he was going to.
I thought, Jesus, if this is gonna be the day,
he's gonna kill me.
And he went, "I understand," and he let me go.
It takes a lot of balls to leave somebody like that when
they don't have the ability to get clean or get better.
Strung out and landing at rock bottom,
Matt's behaviour in the ring becomes as
unpredictable as his behaviour at home.
When Matt didn't like you, it was a wrap.
And he's not gonna let it go, like,
he's that type of person to not let anything go.
We were up in White Plains, New York.
I look at the board and I'm working with Matt.
I go, "Cool," you know, "Hey, Matt, how's it going?"
He goes, "Well, Hacksaw,
how about I come out, I hit you with a chair?
You hit me with a 2x4." I'm like,
"Matt, there's 100 people out there, brother.
I'll come out, I'll cheer USA,
we'll have a nice walk and talk."
Jim had something he did that was, and still is, effective.
And Matt wanted more.
It just so happens that my opponent tonight,
we go way, way, way, way back.
Long story short, we're in the ring,
and he gave me a nut shot.
Alright, gentlemen!
Tried to hurt me.
Hacksaw's going to work!
It's a shoot. [Laughing]
So I rolled up, I pushed him in the corner.
And I'm asking him, "Do you wanna work
or you wanna shoot, brother?"
Let's go! You wanna work?
-Wanna fight? -You want to work?
He rolls out of the ring and grabs a chair.
I got my 2x4, so I tell the referee, I said, you know,
"Tell him we'll finish it in the dressing room
like you're supposed to do."
So, I wait, and I wait, and I wait, no Matt.
He came out of the ring, went right out the fire exit,
got in his car and left.
It was a pre-planned attack.
You have to make a real attempt
at not liking Hacksaw Jim Duggan.
He's not a divisive personality in our business,
like everybody likes... [Laughing]
Jim Duggan, like... [Laughing]
You know, for him to make that move, what, 30 years?
[Laughing] After the incident.
That's carrying a grudge.
By 2013, Matt has moved to Plano, Texas,
where he lives with a new girlfriend.
I met Matt in 1988, '89.
And, I was actually Mean Nurse Kratchet.
Here comes Nurse Kratchet.
So, I would just, you know, bing him with my bed pan,
knock him out. [Laughing]
Hi, my name is Connie Cook,
and I was Matt Borne's girlfriend.
He was crazy, I was crazy.
And, we just hit it off.
2011, he found me on Facebook.
Then he just never left my side.
I loved him and, I wanted to make it work.
That's why I moved to Texas.
Some days it was good. Some days it wasn't.
After I moved to Texas, I was stressing about my mom.
She was very sick.
And he took care of my mom.
He'd cook for her, he gave her her medicine.
I knew he had my back and, I definitely had his.
It was June of 2013.
And, I was getting up for softball practice.
My mom texts me and said, "I think your dad's dead".
'Cause we saw it on TMZ.
My mom said she called my dad's cellphone,
and Connie answered the phone.
She was like crying hysterically.
My mom said, "What the fuck happened, Connie?"
I say, "Connie, do not tell me he's dead."
I know Connie killed my dad.
I will never not think that she did it.
She took him away from me, and I hate her for it.
At home in Ellwood, Michelle and Tegan
are shocked to learn that Matt has passed,
tragic news confirmed by a phone call
with Matt's girlfriend, Connie Cook.
I said, "Okay, so, like what happened?"
She goes, "Well, he stole all my mom's drugs."
And she said, "Yeah, he's dead."
And I'm thinking, "Oh, my God,
this wasn't in the cards.
How am I supposed to take care of these kids?" Right?
They were 12 and 15.
Sorry, getting emotional.
But, it changed everything in our lives, everything.
The night before my dad died,
my mom was on the phone with him,
and he said, "Michelle, I called you because
I'm leaving Connie."
He went, "I told the crazy bitch I'm leaving her."
I said, "Oh, Jesus Christ!"
We giggled, and then he went, "Well, you know what,
if anything does happen to me, Michelle,
don't let it go." I said,
"Matt, what are you talking about?
Why would you say that?"
He went, "Seriously, just don't let it go."
The day that all this happened,
he was moaning in the kitchen.
And I was like, "What is wrong with you?" "Nothing."
So, then, he does it again, moans again.
And so he turned around and falls to his knee,
and he grabbed my hand, he goes, "Marry me."
I said, "Oh, my God,
you're really on my nerve right now."
I think he may have been having a heart attack and
he just wouldn't tell me.
And he wore glasses, and so he was like,
"Connie, I can't find my glasses."
So, I go retrace his steps-
kitchen, my mom's bedroom.
Well, I noticed that one of the bottles was moved.
And I was like, "Matt, that medicine
is from hospice." I was like,
"We're gonna be in trouble if you don't
tell me where those are." And he said to me,
"Well, I guess I'll just go to jail." And I was like,
"That's just crazy."
So, I go to bed and, later on,
I don't even know what time it was,
I hear somebody beating on the door.
And, there's a girl at the door.
She was like, "My brothers found your husband
laying on the ground outside.
They think he's dead."
It was like a gated community kind of place where everybody
could see everything that's going on in your life.
And, there was witnesses.
They saw him. He was stumbling,
falling over air conditioners.
He was bruised.
So, I heard sirens, and I was like,
"Matt, you need to get up because I think
someone's called the police on you for being drunk
out here because they said you were on the ground."
So, we get him to his feet,
we set him down in the recliner by the door.
At that time, I didn't know he was OD'ing.
Well, I went in and got in the bed,
and I could hear him snoring.
So, I didn't think anything was wrong with him
'cause he snored.
You were watching him overdose,
and you did nothing!
If you saw someone puking in their mouth and
gagging on it, wouldn't you think
there was something wrong?
According to Plano police reports,
on the morning Matt died, Connie awoke at 6:30 AM and
saw Matt gurgling and foaming at the mouth.
After calling her friend, Connie went back to bed.
At 9 AM, two and a half hours after she first woke up,
Connie called 9-1-1.
That was like early in the morning.
My alarm usually went off 6 o'clock, 6:30.
I heard him all night snoring,
but when I came out the bedroom,
there's something coming out of his nose,
and so I grabbed the rag and I was like,
"Hey, what- you need to get up.
That's nasty." And he was making a different noise.
And so, I called my friend in Tennessee,
and I leaned over the counter and was
trying to let her listen to it.
And I said, "Do you hear that?" She said,
"Connie, that's a death rattle." She was like,
"Hang up right now and call 9-1-1."
It's not like I just left him sitting there.
I mean, it might have been 5 minutes until
I called my friend. I didn't go back to bed.
No, they have that wrong. I didn't go back to bed.
As soon as I hung up talking to her, I called 9-1-1.
And they snatched him up and put him on the gurney,
trying to get the thing down his throat,
and they were like, "We gotta go now."
I mean, dude was on top of him, pounding on him.
I'm just like- now I'm really freaking out.
And then, the detective came in and
I told her what I knew.
We went in the room, she found the bottle.
I think there was maybe 30 missing out of the bottle,
so I don't know how many he actually had taken.
And so, I left and went to the hospital, and...
went and saw him, and...
[Sighing]
So, I'm screaming at Matt to get up.
And then they were trying to make me leave.
And I literally wouldn't leave the room
because they were trying to put him in the dark,
and Matt hated the dark.
Overdose of hydrocodone and morphine.
And an enlarged heart.
Connie believes Matt's heart issues were a secret
he had kept for a very long time.
When he was in WWF, he went to the hospital
'cause he was having, I guess, chest pains.
And so, they hooked him up to a EKG machine.
I think they wanted to do something, but Matt never did.
And then, when he passed away,
I called the coroner's office to find out exactly,
you know, what they found out.
His heart was six times the normal size, and I was like,
"What does that mean?" They were like,
"Substance abuse, stress."
I think he worried about it,
but he just didn't tell nobody about it.
I called the ambulance when I realized that there was
something wrong with him. I did everything to help him.
With his backstory,
he has a track record for being on drugs.
On his death certificate it was accidental overdose.
Of course, it's easy to put that down
because of who he was. But, no.
When I hung up with him,
she was about to bring him out a drink.
He probably got a thing of Crown.
She mixed some liquid morphine in there and
he's probably fucked up out of his mind and,
he sat on the recliner.
He laid there and died all night.
He was foaming out the mouth.
I'm confused.
Why'd you wait all night to call 9-1-1?
There was foul play.
I'm just, I'm just flabbergasted that
someone would even think that of me.
I feel horrible!
I'm horrified that that child would think that.
The allegations are crazy. They're not true.
I did not kill him. I did not put anything in his drink.
I love him. I still love him to this day!
And still wish that he was here.
Why would I want to kill him?
And if it meant me dying and leaving here for him
to be alive, I would be dead, and he would be here.
An investigation by the Plano Police Department
found no evidence of any criminal conduct,
no evidence that Matt Borne was deliberately drugged with
liquid morphine by Connie Cook,
and no evidence of negligence in her
response to Matt Borne's overdose.
On June 28th, 2013, Matt Borne,
known to wrestling fans as Doink The Clown, dies.
According to the autopsy,
it was from an overdose of opiates.
I remember that day very vividly,
going into that funeral home and...
my brother, like, that was his first funeral ever.
He was like, "Why is he so cold?" And, I lost it.
I mean it was- that was really tough.
The worst thing of all this was watching them
to look over their dad in that casket.
And there was nothing I could do- a hug, a kiss,
nothing- that I could take away their pain.
You know, I'm not gonna lie to you.
It's been, it's been terrible.
I mean, I struggled with depression for a little bit.
I lost a lot of friends.
And I kind of felt like my dad in that moment,
now that I look back at it, he lost so many people
because of his actions, and it was like, damn,
now I know how this dude felt.
No wonder why he did drugs,
'cause he felt like shit all the time.
♪
I heard comments that people have made about me, you know,
that the reason I got Doink over is because I'm a sick
motherfucker that needs some serious help.
There's times I think that too, you know,
but who isn't, you know? I mean, come on.
I'm not getting into the ring with some jabroni that
puts on some clown outfit and calls himself Doink.
It's Matt Borne.
Matt lived fast and hard, and so,
it did not come as a shock when I learned that
Matt had passed.
He seemed to have a lot going for him.
Come on, tough guy!
But ultimately, Matt's biggest adversary
was not a wrestler, but his demons,
from a substance standpoint,
and the temperament issue he struggled with.
His legacy is of a guy who willingly gave more to the
wrestling business than it gave back.
-Yeah! -Oh!
And a guy whose weaknesses were exploited by
the nature of the beast- constant travel,
the strain on relationships, the pain involved that
opens the door to medication.
Matt Borne meant a lot to wrestling,
and to anyone who saw Matt at his best,
which was not in the national spotlight,
but in those regional territories.
And Borne throws him back!
He connected, and he made a difference.
This picture is actually
two weeks before Matt passed,
with his son, Matthew, at the airport, leaving.
Very sad.
Yeah, Matthew was always sad when Dad left.
Yeah, it tore him up.
This picture's one of my favourites 'cause it's one of
the last I got with him. But this picture, he was like,
"Come on, Tee, we gotta get one picture before I leave."
And I'm like, "Alright." This is one of my favourites.
And his big hand's back there too.
It looks like a spider,
but it's Dad's huge-ass hand, so...
Sad to see him go.
This is all we have left of him.
Yeah.
We all have these troubled souls.
We're all troubled souls, if we look at it honestly.
But Matt had, had talent.
Matt had a legacy.
He made Doink The Clown bigger than it
ever should have been, in my opinion.
And, that gets covered up by some of his transgressions
outside of the ring.
From time to time, when Matt had a few drinks,
he would open up about the pain of...
being an absentee dad.
And I really think that bothered Matt.
Yeah, he had a lot of regrets about marriages,
about his kids.
And I seen that, firsthand.
I never gave up on him through all that bad stuff
we did go through.
I knew he was a good person.
The horrible things that my kids read about their dad,
oh, just, "Doink was a drug addict,
he was a piece of shit, washed up wrestler,"
that he was not that.
Yes, he did do his share of drugs,
and he did make mistakes just like every other human being.
But, I just want people to know that
that's not what he was.
I want him to be remembered as a great father.
He wanted to raise those two kids.
♪
I miss him, not gonna lie.
But they miss him way more.
One thing my mom always told me, she's like,
"Well, Tegan, when you were born, your dad said,
'She's gonna be something someday'."
And every time my mom says that,
it makes me feel like he's still here a little bit,
and I'm like, I mean, I'm not no
Doink The Clown, I'm not no famous wrestler,
but when I graduated college, I graduated with almost a 4.0.
I graduated magna cum laude.
Took these CPA exams that were so hard,
and got a job right out of college.
I'm a certified public accountant.
And then you just get the little negative part where
I'm like, damn, like, he should be here.
We had our little rough patches.
We butted heads, and now that I'm getting older,
I realize we butted heads so much because
we were so much alike.
And now I wish I could just say, "You know what, Dad,
I'm sorry." Wasn't perfect, but he was my dad, so...