HOW MANY DOINKS DOES IT TAKE...

Wow, are we really only a week away from Wrestlemania 27? The days are just flying by aren't they? It's been a pretty eventful month for wrestling fans (well, maybe not for TNA fans), but the long wait is almost over. Personally, I'm looking forward to the Hall of Fame ceremony, especially since the Road Warriors are rumored to be the next inductees. I don't know why Jake "the Snake" Roberts and Arn Anderson are not among the inductees (as of now anyway) this year, but it should still be a good show. Anyway, enough rambling, let's get to the post.

For those of you new to wrestling, no, Chris Jericho didn't have an early WWF stint as Doink the Clown. This was actually part of the March 26, 2001 episode of Monday Night RAW, a historic night in wrestling that saw the first, and only, simulcast between WWF RAW and WCW Monday Nitro (Vince McMahon had bought WCW a mere two days prior after Turner Broadcasting cancelled all WCW programming from their networks). The reason Jericho was dressed as Doink was so that the WWF could cross promote two of the matches for the upcoming Wrestlemania 17. The first, obviously, was a bout between Chris Jericho and William Regal for the Intercontinental Title, an awesome match that opened the show and had Jericho take the crown. The second match in question was the infamous Gimmick Battle Royal that was won by the Iron Sheik (for more info, check out the March 2010 posts).

As for Doink, a few people have played him over the years. The first was Matt Borne, who began portraying Doink in 1992, having just come off a run in WCW where he was known as Big Josh, a lumberjack who carried an ax with no blade and was escorted to the ring by dancing bears! (Only in wrestling can going from a lumberjack to a clown be considered a step up.) Sadly, Borne had some issues and was fired. Steve Lombardi (the Brooklyn Brawler) and Steve Keirn (Skinner) stepped in until Ray Apollo was brought in in early 1993 to play Doink. In 2002, Nick Dinsmore (Eugene) donned the grease paint for a match on Smackdown against Chris Benoit and most recently, Lombardi played Doink in an eight man tag match on RAW last summer. With Chris Jericho's lone appearance, that makes six men who have all been Doink over the years. Hopefully, this'll give everybody a better understanding of how much it takes to be Doink the Clown (And please, no e-mails about Doink's midget counterpart, Dink. Nobody cares about him!).

Well, that's all for now. I hope to be back next time with some new comics as well as some April Fools Day fun to get everybody ready for the coming month. Until next time, I'll catch y'all later!