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Doink the Clown?s family sues WWE, claiming brain trauma led to painkiller overdose in Plano

Posted: Jun 26th 2015 By: Robert Wilonsky - TheScoopBlog.DallasNews.com

Matt Osborne ? better known as pro-wrestling journeyman video-game star Doink the Clown in the mid-1990s ? died June 28, 2013, at the age of 57 in his Plano home. The Collin County Medical Examiner ruled that an overdose of painkillers was to blame.

In a lawsuit filed in Dallas federal court Friday, his family points to another culprit: pro wrestling. Specifically, Vince McMahon?s World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., the sole defendant named in the lawsuit filed by Michelle James on behalf of Doink the Clown?s children, Matthew and Teagan Osborne.

The suit, echoing those filed in recent years by pro football players suffering from brain injuries caused by years? worth of concussions, alleges that wrestling led to ?traumatic brain injuries? that resulted in ?depression and drug abuse, which ultimately resulted in his untimely death.? The lawsuit says Osborne wasn?t the only wrestler victimized by wrestling?s scripted violence, where phony beatings led to real injuries. It lists more than a dozen others, among them members of the Von Erich family.

?When forced to acknowledge the risks to which it subjects its wrestlers ? by script, on a daily basis ? WWE took inadequate steps to correct the problem or to address its injurious conduct, the full consequences of which are still coming to light,? says the suit. ?Indeed, WWE continues a course of conduct designed to mislead its wrestlers, and designed to mislead Matthew Osborne until his death, about the injuries they sustained while wrestling for WWE by failing to disclose pertinent facts or offering misleading truths.?

The suit, filed by ?doctor-lawyer? Shezad Malik, who reps personal injury suits out of his Greenville Avenue and Southlake offices, doesn?t specify how much the family wants. Messages have been left for Malik. Other out-of-town attorneys are also listed in the lawsuit below.

WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt has said previously that WWE is ?being targeted by attorneys who tell [wrestlers and their families] there?s hundreds of thousands of dollars? to be made filing concussion-related suits. He tells The Dallas Morning News Friday evening this suit is no different ? that it?s just another one in a long line of legal filings aimed at ?drumming up people ? looking for NFL money.? The out-of-town attorneys behind the Dallas suit, he says, are also involved in similar ones in California and Connecticut.

?And they don?t have any merit,? he says. ?They?re all different from the NFL. We never had anyone claim they had these kinds of injuries until [these attorneys] did it. They find the destitute, people who have no money, and told them there?s money to be made. That?s what is going on. ? And I feel bad for these families, because they think they?ll make money off of this, and they?re not.?

When Osborne died two years ago, WWE issued a statement that said, ?WWE is saddened by the news that Matt Osborne, aka the original Doink the Clown, has passed away. A rugged brawler in promotions like Mid-South Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling, Osborne made a major impact in WWE under the greasepaint of a prankster named Doink ? one of the most enduring personas of the early ?90s. Our deepest condolences go out to Osborne?s family, friends and fans.?