Bobby Heenan

Bobby Heenan
Born	(1940-11-01) November 1, 1940 Chicago, Illinois
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Bobby Heenan Bobby "The Brain" Heenan
Billed height	6 ft 00 in (183 cm)
Billed weight	242
Billed from	Beverly Hills, California
Debut	1965
Retired	2000

Raymond Louis Heenan (born November 1, 1940), better known by his ring name Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, is an American former professional wrestling manager and former commentator. He is legendary in the business for his skill in drawing heel heat for himself and his wrestlers, and for his masterful on-screen repartee with Gorilla Monsoon as a color commentator.

Career

Early career

Always a fan of wrestling, Heenan started in the wrestling profession early on, carrying bags and jackets for the wrestlers, and selling refreshments at the events. Heenan entered the wrestling business as a manager in 1965 as cowardly heel. At the time, heels were often given managers to speak for them in interviews, rile up the crowd during matches, and cheat on their behalf. Bobby "The Brain" Heenan went on to manage some of the most successful wrestlers in the world, creating The Heenan Family, a stable that would exist (in several different reincarnations and wrestling promotions) for over 20 years, but Heenan, himself, never considered his family a stable because he felt that a stable consisted of fly-infested horses.

American Wrestling Association

In 1969, Heenan joined the American Wrestling Association (AWA) as a manager and occasional tag team partner of The Blackjacks, eventually moving on to managing Nick Bockwinkel and Ray "The Crippler" Stevens, a duo which became several-time AWA Tag Team Champions under Heenan's leadership. The AWA was the starting point for Heenan's first Heenan Family, which consisted of Bockwinkel, Stevens, Bobby Duncum Sr., and Blackjack Lanza. In 1975, with Heenan in his corner, Bockwinkel captured his first of several AWA Championships, ending the 7-year reign of perennial champion Verne Gagne. While Bockwinkel was AWA champion, in 1976, Lanza and Duncum captured the AWA Tag Team Championship, making Heenan the first manager in history to simultaneously manage both a major promotion's singles and tag team World Champions. While Bockwinkel and Stevens feuded with The Crusher and Dick the Brusier, Dick the Brusier famously called Heenan "Weasel;" this led to faces calling Heenan Weasel throughout the rest of his wrestling career as well.

In early 1979, Heenan left the AWA to work in the National Wrestling Alliance's Georgia Championship Wrestling group (the kayfabe reason for his departure being given as a one-year suspension from the AWA). He returned in late 1979 and resumed managing Nick Bockwinkel to renewed championship success, including against a young up-and-coming challenger named Hulk Hogan in 1983.

World Wrestling Federation

Manager

In 1984, Vince McMahon, Jr. lured Heenan away from the AWA to manage Jesse "The Body" Ventura; however, after Ventura contracted blood clots in his lungs, he was forced to end his active wrestling career. Heenan instead became Big John Studd's manager for his feud with André the Giant, and he soon reformed the Heenan Family. Over Heenan's WWF career, the Heenan Family included Studd, Ken Patera, "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff, King Kong Bundy, André the Giant, The Brain Busters (former Horsemen members Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard), "Ravishing" Rick Rude, Harley Race, The Islanders (Haku and Tama), Hercules, The Barbarian, Mr. Perfect, Terry Taylor, and The Brooklyn Brawler. As a manager, he was always one of the most hated men, often the most hated man, in the promotion. Heenan once had a famous feud with Andre the Giant while managing Big John Studd, and famously challenged Andre to a $15,000 bodyslam match at the first Wrestlemania, where Andre had to retire from wrestling if he had lost the match.

Heenan and the Heenan Family had a monumental feud with wrestling icon Hulk Hogan in the 80s, and Heenan managed two WrestleMania challengers to Hogan's title, King Kong Bundy in 1986, and André the Giant in 1987. Andre did not win the title at that time, but later bested Hogan for the championship in 1988 in a controversial win after he aligned himself with "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase. Heenan also had a famous feud with The Ultimate Warrior, who reintroduced Heenan to Weasel Suit matches, which Heenan had during his time in the AWA.

After being derided by announcers for his first five years in the WWF (mostly by Gorilla Monsoon) for never managing a champion, Heenan eventually managed several WWF Tag Team Champions, including The Brain Busters, and The Colossal Connection (Andre and Haku). He also managed "Ravishing" Rick Rude and later Mr. Perfect to the Intercontinental Championship, and introduced the "Real World's Heavyweight Champion" (then-NWA World Champion) Ric Flair to the WWF in 1991, and "Narcissist" Lex Luger at the 1993 Royal Rumble. He acted as an advisor and sometime manager to Flair during his first WWF run (and coined the phrase, "That's not fair to Flair" and "You got to be fair to Flair"). Bobby Heenan once also had a four episode talk show known as The Bobby Heenan Show, which was co-hosted by a nerd named Jaimeson Wingler and featured the very overweight women known as The Oinkettes.

In 1991, Heenan stopped being a manager to become a full-time "broadcast journalist", as a broadcaster shamelessly cheerleading while the heels cheated or do something under-handed. The chief reason Heenan stepped down as a manager was because his neck hurt him too much and he couldn't take bumps the way he used to. Heenan loved being a manager.

Commentator

In 1986, Heenan became a color commentator in addition to his managing duties. He replaced Jesse Ventura on Prime Time Wrestling and All American Wrestling, aired on the USA Network, teaming up with Gorilla Monsoon. He also replaced Ventura to team up with Monsoon on the syndicated All-Star Wrestling, which was replaced in the fall of '86 with Wrestling Challenge. Heenan and Monsoon's usually-unscripted banter, with Heenan as the instigator and Monsoon as the voice of reason was very entertaining, and inspired many classic moments. Heenan, calling himself a "broadcast journalist" despite his obvious slant toward heel wrestlers, referred to his audience as "humanoids," and babyface wrestlers, especially jobbers, as "ham-and-eggers."

In 1993, Heenan still suffering from the broken neck he received back in 1983 felt the long-work schedule was too much for him and deceided to leave the WWF. Heenan left the WWF towards the end of 1993. Heenan's original plan was to retire, spend time with his family, and relax, but soon after he left the WWF he was contacted by WCW. At first, he was skeptical, but accepted their offer once he found-out that WCW had a lighter work schedule, that they were stationed in Atlanta where coincidentally his daughter went to school, and that Ted Turner supplied health insurance.

He was given an on-air farewell by Gorilla Monsoon who, in kayfabe was fed up by Heenan's constant insults, threw him and his belongings out of the Westchester County Center and onto the sidewalk of White Plains, NY.

World Championship Wrestling

In 1994, Bobby Heenan joined WCW as a full-time commentator. He served as color commentator on WCW flagship shows Monday Nitro and Thunder, as well as the Clash of the Champions specials and many pay-per-views. Heenan was largely uninspired in WCW due to the negative work environment, which he would later describe as night and day compared to the WWF, and due-to-the-fact that he was informed, in not such a nice way, that as a commentator the company didn't need his input on ideas or storylines.

In 1995, after 12 years of suffering in pain, Heenan was able to have surgery on his broken-neck.

Heenan made one brief return to ringside at the 1996 edition of the Great American Bash, leading Ric Flair and Arn Anderson to victory over Steve McMichael and Kevin Greene.

Toward the end of 1999, WCW began replacing Heenan on its weekly telecasts, as well as on pay-per-views. He was released by WCW in 2000 because the executives wanted a younger look for a more "MTV audience."

Pillman incident

At one notable Clash of the Champions event broadcast live on TBS in 1996, Heenan screamed, "What the fuck are you doing?" when Brian Pillman grabbed him by his neck, which he had surgery on not too long ago, during Pillman's "loose cannon" gimmick. Heenan would return to the air later on and apologize for his audible cursing on air, and according to Heenan, Pillman apologized to him for the incident backstage, citing he did not know of Heenan's history of neck problems beforehand, and more specifically that Heenan had been labeled "no-touch" by management because of his injuries. The language was edited out of all WCW tapes, but can be heard in the 2006 DVD release on Pillman's career.

Post-WCW career

Heenan kept busy after being let go by WCW, providing commentary to the Gimmick Battle Royal match at WrestleMania X-Seven and lending his talents to smaller promotions.

In 2001, Heenan worked briefly as a "sports agent" in the X Wrestling Federation with Curt Henning under his tutelage.

In January 2002, Heenan announced on his website that he was battling throat cancer:

I just want to let all the wonderful "humanoids" out there know how grateful I am for the good wishes...

Yes, I do have throat cancer, but I plan on beating this too.

If the late, great Gorilla Monsoon couldn't shut me up, cancer isn't going to either..

Heenan has since largely recovered from throat cancer, but lost a great deal of weight, dramatically changing his appearance, and suffered a drastically changed voice. Heenan went from being 242 lbs. to being 190 lbs. or even less. These drastic differences led to rumors that Heenan was terminally ill, most (if not all) of which have since dwindled.

He has written two career memoirs, 2002's Bobby The Brain: Wrestling's Bad Boy Tells All, which includes an introduction by Hulk Hogan and 2003's Chair Shots & Other Obstacles: Winning Life's Wrestling Matches. Both books were co-written by Steve Anderson.

In 2004, Heenan was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame shortly before WrestleMania XX. In his acceptance speech, he paid tribute to his late broadcast partner, saying "I wish Monsoon were here."

Heenan made a brief appearance between matches at the actual WrestleMania XX broadcast; while Jonathan Coachman was "searching" the backstage area for The Undertaker, he investigated some noises to discover aged female wrestlers Mae Young and The Fabulous Moolah. Heenan and "Mean" Gene Okerlund would appear moments later in a disheveled state; Coachman would imply that the four had been involved in a sex act of some sort.

Heenan is still involved in wrestling on a limited basis, giving interviews and making sporadic appearances. In 2004 he returned to the spotlight, feuding with fellow managerial legend Jim Cornette in Ring of Honor.

On April 2, 2005 Heenan inducted his former protege Paul Orndorff into the WWE Hall of Fame and on April 1, 2006 Heenan inducted Blackjack Mulligan and Blackjack Lanza into the WWE Hall of Fame. On March 31, 2007 Heenan inducted Nick Bockwinkel into the WWE Hall of Fame.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

Bobby Heenan appeared for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) towards the end of 2005 on TNA iMPACT! along side Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski and strength coach Dale Torborg when they presented TNA wrestlers A.J. Styles, Chris Sabin, and Sonjay Dutt with autographed gifts from the team. They were interrupted by The Diamonds in the Rough which led to a second appearance.

On September 6, 2006, Heenan made another appearance on an episode of iMPACT! making a bid to manage "free agent" Bobby Roode.

Personal life

Bobby is married to his wife Cynthia, and has one daughter, Jessica.

Although on-screen they were often at-odds, Heenan was actually good friends with frequent broadcast partner Gorilla Monsoon. Heenan broke down in tears when he and Tony Schiavone announced Monsoon's death on the October 11, 1999 live broadcast of WCW Monday Nitro. Monsoon died on October 6, 1999. Despite his never having worked for WCW, Heenan reportedly insisted that they announce the death of his friend.

Wrestlers managed

See also: The Heenan Family

Nick Bockwinkel Ray "The Crippler" Stevens Angelo Poffo Bobby Duncum Sr. Blackjack Lanza Blackjack Mulligan Adrian Adonis Jesse "The Body" Ventura Big John Studd

King Kong Bundy André the Giant "Ravishing" Rick Rude "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff Harley Race The Islanders (Haku and Tama) Hercules The Barbarian "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig Red Rooster

Brain Busters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard) The Brooklyn Brawler Ric Flair The Missing Link Lex Luger Nikolai Volkoff CM Punk Colt Cabana Jon "Jumbo" Bailey Jimmy Jacobs

Championships and accomplishments

• Heenan won four Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) Manager of the Year Awards during his career. He won in 1972, 1976, 1989 and 1991.

External links

• Heenan's official website
• Bobby Heenan's WWE Hall of Fame Profile
• Bobby Heenan at IMDb
• Bobby "The Brain" Heenan Interview Conducted With Ringside Radio