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Bobby Heenan

Raymond Louis Heenan (born November 1, 1944) better known as Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, is a former American professional wrestling manager and color commentator, best known for his time with World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation. He is legendary in the business for his skill in drawing heel heat for himself and his wrestlers, and for his on-screen repartee with Gorilla Monsoon as a color commentator.

Career

Early career

Always a fan of wrestling growing up in Chicago and Indianapolis, 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 cowardly heel manager in 1965. 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. Heenan did not like the term "stable", stating that it should only refer to a place to keep 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 World 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 World titles, ending the 7-year reign of perennial champion Verne Gagne. While Bockwinkel was AWA champion, in 1976, Lanza and Duncum captured the AWA World tag team title, 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 Bruiser, Dick the Bruiser famously called Heenan "Weasel"; this led to faces calling Heenan "Weasel" throughout the rest of his wrestling career.

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. Heenan also managed Ken Patera after Patera came to the AWA in 1982, but Patera would join forces with Adnan Al-Kaissie after Heenan suffered a serious neck injury while wrestling in Japan in 1983 and had to take time off.

World Wrestling Federation

Manager

In 1984, Vince McMahon lured Heenan away from the AWA to manage Jesse "The Body" Ventura; however, after Ventura developed 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 Heavyweight Champion) Ric Flair to WWF in 1991, and "Narcissist" Lex Luger at the 1993 Royal Rumble. He acted as an advisor and sometimes 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 parody talk show known as The Bobby Heenan Show, which was seen in four segments during the WWF's regular weekly program. It was co-hosted by Jameson Winger 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 rooting for the heels while they cheated or did 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.

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."

Heenan, still suffering from the broken neck he received ten years earlier and unable to cope with the long working hours, left the WWF at the end of 1993. His original plan was to retire, spend time with his family, and relax, but he was contacted by the WCW soon after he left the WWF. He was unsure at first, but accepted their offer once he found out that WCW had a lighter work schedule, they were stationed in Atlanta where his daughter went to school, and that Ted Turner would supply health insurance.

He was given an on-air farewell by Gorilla Monsoon on Monday Night RAW 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. Heenan mentioned that the idea was his and Gorilla's. Afterwards, Heenan states that at the hotel he and Monsoon embraced each other and wept for over an hour.

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 November 2000. They proceeded to replace him with Mark Madden.

Pillman incident

At one notable Clash of the Champions event broadcast live on TBS on January 23, 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 Hennig under his tutelage.

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

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, and 2003's Chair Shots & Other Obstacles: Winning Life's Wrestling Matches which has an introduction by Ric Flair. 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 and real-life close friend, 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.

Bobby Heenan also appeared in interviews for The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD in 2005.

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.

Heenan's latest appearance on World Wrestling Entertainment occurred on the June 11, 2007 episode of Monday Night Raw (also billed as the WWE Draft 2007). Heenan was featured in a taped segment giving his thoughts on Mr. McMahon for "Mr. McMahon Appreciation Night".

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

Bobby Heenan appeared for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) towards the end of 2005 on TNA Impact! alongside 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. This was the first time that Heenan ever played a babyface in his career.

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

In Other Media

Bobby Heenan has been confirmed for the video game roster for the upcoming title WWE Legends of WrestleMania. The game will be available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game consoles.

Personal life

Bobby has been married to his wife Cynthia Jean for over 30 years and has one daughter, Jessica.

Although on-screen they were often at-odds, Heenan was actually very close with his WWF broadcast partner Gorilla Monsoon. Heenan broke down in tears and eventually had to leave the broadcast booth 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.

Heenan is also good friends with Gene Okerlund.

In December 2007, Heenan had reconstructive surgery on his jaw, after the first surgery was unsuccessful. Heenan was placed in a medically induced coma and was slowly brought out.

In the second half of January 2008, Bobby Heenan had come out of his medically induced coma. Though not yet able to speak he was communicating with his eyes. He has more surgeries to come, but they are plastic surgeries to reconstruct facial features. The reconstructing of his jaw is complete.