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Bobby Heenan Passes Away


pitseleh

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Very sad news.

I first started watching WWF in 91 and my main memories were watching Bobby on Wrestling Challenge.

Who could forget his unbelievable commentary performance at the 92 Rumble?

Favourite memories for me were "waffle him, give it to me I'll hit him" during Piper-Bret at WM8 but I'll always think of Bobbys quips until he provoked Gorilla into a loud "will you stop that?"

A very funny, talented man.

RIP

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The word legend gets thrown about too much in wrestling these days but Bobby Heenan was, and had the chance to meet him at wrestlecon in 2014 such a courageous man aswell to stay as positive as he did and carry on with life as well as he could after such a horrible disease. Now he can reunite with Gorilla up in the sky. Heavens got a great commentary team now.

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Rubbish news to get up to. Not really much to say, as tiger_rick and so many others have pretty much covered why he was the greatest ever. And behind the scenes always came across as a nice guy. To have his life affected by cancer in such a way really is so damn cruel; in a way, it's a relief to know he isn't suffering any more.

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10 hours ago, TheBurningRed said:

The greatest commentator and manager. Watching wrestling was always a joy when The Brain was on commentary. 

Sums it up for me - always a joy. He made wrestling, all of it, just fun in a way that so few before or since have. He was the absolute master of his craft, but he also had such a sense of mischief to him that made it all feel effortless. What a guy.

One of the last things I saw before going to bed last night was people on Twitter sharing Bobby Heenan stories - I feared the worst and couldn't bring myself to check, just went to bed as if a night's sleep would make it go away. First thing I saw this morning was Meltzer's Tweet.

He was just the best, wasn't he? Perfect manager, perfect colour commentator, superb on commentary in the '92 Rumble, and during my all-time favourite match, Piper/Bret from Wrestlemania 8. Played his role to perfection, never made it about him - he had credibility, but he used that credibility to get the heels over who needed it, and then to use those guys to make the babyfaces look like the stars they needed to be. When Roddy Piper showed up in WCW, he said to Hulk Hogan, "would they have loved you so much if they didn't hate me so much?" - Bobby Heenan could have said the same thing, about Hogan, and about almost any babyface that came through the AWA and the WWF during his run. He was also probably the best at wrestling "like a manager", and bumped like an absolute maniac when it finally came time for the face to get their hands on him - and he was probably the best around at withholding that moment exactly long enough to make it really count (compare to Jimmy Hart, who I adore, but who would bump for the faces in practically every match). Hugely underrated when it comes to bumping and selling.

And, of course, he was hilarious. To me, Heenan is a part of the pantheon of great American comics and wits as much as a wrestling Hall of Famer - he's one of the quickest witted, funniest performers I've ever seen. In another life, he'd have been a late night chat show host or an old-school comic actor, and he'd have excelled at it.

A lot of love, deservedly, for his Hall of Fame induction, which is one of the best, by far. But my thoughts went straight to his tribute to Gorilla Monsoon on Nitro. They're gonna have to rename the Pearly Gates the Gorilla Position. Class act.

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As wrestling fans we have gotten used to untimely deaths of a lot of our heroes. You could even argue that the beginning of his cancer battle was when we lost Bobby. But one of the most amazing things, as seen in that HOF induction, is even having the after effects of Throat Cancer and surgery didn't stop him being The Brain.

As a 7 year old discovering wrestling for the first time I hated Heenan. But during the Ric Flair period/RR 92, I grew to appreciate him and just how good he was. Going back and watching some of the old shows now with him and Gorilla leave me with an even greater understanding of the genius he was.

I am sad he has gone, but when someone is suffering like he was for so long, I am glad he is at peace. I can just imagine if his health had not declined how he would have been all over the network with new content. This one has hit hard. One of the all time greats of wrestling.

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Watch Heenan on the old PTW eps from the late 80's. He does so much to pad out this world of what a manager does in the kayfabe world of wrestling. Sponging, stealing, the perfect business from a phone booth charlatan. He even creates these wonderful off screen characters like Miss Betty.

I always get such a kick out of the Heenan/Monsoon duo. Heenan wants to be the sole host of the show, but if Monsoon isn't around, he can barely string a sentence and desperately needs Gorilla around. There was no better exit of a character the Heenan's WWF exit in 1993.

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11 minutes ago, Nick Soapdish said:

 I can just imagine if his health had not declined how he would have been all over the network with new content.

Something that occurred to me this morning is that one of the great tragedies of his illness was that, at a time when "An Audience With..." shows with wrestling personalities were briefly the Big Thing, we never got An Evening With The Brain.

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11 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Something that occurred to me this morning is that one of the great tragedies of his illness was that, at a time when "An Audience With..." shows with wrestling personalities were briefly the Big Thing, we never got An Evening With The Brain.

You're completely right. A JBL interview on the network would have been great. Even a guest appearance on Bring it to the table. Imagine him being able to come on after Rosenberg worn the brain jacket at the PPV, he comes on the following week with someone like Meng and takes it off him.

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Guys like him are one of the biggest things missing from wrestling. People talk about the wrestlers not being as big, being PG and wrestlers not being great on the mic. However guys like him who could make the wrestler seem bad and get them over as a heel by often being their mouth piece and getting them over via commentary if he wasn't playing a manager roll. He was a big part of wrestling when I got into it in about 90 and while I hated him back then, I look back and see how much he made me love wrestling.

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Dylan Hales on Twitter summed up Bobby Heenan and, in a way, all great wrestling heels perfectly - that he managed to be both credibly evil and utterly absurd at the same time. I'm going to use that phrase a lot to describe good heel work from now on, I'm sure, and it's a perfect assessment of why The Brain just worked.

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One of the greatest heel managers there will ever be and the voice of my childhood. Hopefully him and Monsoon will be somewhere commentating together again. RIP

Jus wanted to share this Heenan quote Samoa Joe shared on Twitter

"If you're poor and you do something stupid, you're nuts. If you're rich and do something stupid, you're eccentric." 

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