RAW flubbed its go-home show for this Sunday's No Mercy while SmackDown Live more or less killed the momentum created by the outstanding Kevin Owens/Vince McMahon segment from last week. It wasn't the best showing for WWE programming. So while I will touch on a few things from TV, and maybe a few non-TV items, what I wanted to write about mostly this week was Bobby Heenan.
Oh, and post this .gif of Braun bulldozing Enzo...
Sorry, I mean Saint Braun. The Monstrous.
Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, who passed away on Sunday at age 73, meant a lot to many fans, including myself. Even those who began watching wresting in the Attitude Era were able to catch him as part of WCW's broadcast team and could see that he had something special. Still, his best work came before that final stretch in WCW, as a heel commentator and manager in the WWF. And before that as a manger, in the 70s, for the AWA.
Many folks have already written many pieces about Heenan over the past few days so I'm not here to post any sort of definitive take on the man, just spout off a bit on how much he meant to me growing up - specifically too as a rare child fan in the 80s and early 90s who loved heels. Pieces have mentioned how masterful he was at getting the crowd to hate him, which is true (even so much that a mentally disturbed fan fired a gun at Heenan during a show in 1975, injuring several other people), but as someone who, as a kid, loved heels and didn't see what the big deal about Hulk Hogan was, Heenan spoke to me on a groovy sub-level.
Heenan is the main reason, the ground zero reason, I've always said that the best way to be a heel in the wrestling business, to varying degrees given the era, is to simply tell the truth. It's the babyface's job to want to punch the heel for exposing truths and getting a bit "too real" because they have no counter-argument other than to start throwing fists. That's how I've always seen wrestling at its most basic level. Heenan is what drove this home for me.
My favorite wrestler in history is Curt Hennig. Specifically, his run as "Mr. Perfect" in the WWF during his feud with Hogan and then his year (or so) as a two-time IC Champ with Heenan at his side. Heenan was a big part of why I loved Hennig, and then later Flair when he came over to the WWF briefly, though I was already a fan of Flair's and knew who he was before Heenan showed up on TV with just the famous Big Gold Belt, saying that comparing the man associated with that title (Flair) to all other wrestlers was like comparing "ice cream to horse manure."
And yes, you can guess that I was over the freakin' moon when Perfect became Flair's ringside guy, with Heenan lauding both of them on commentary (even further, Heenan's work through the entire 1992 Royal Rumble match is magic).
Reflecting on Bobby Heenan's death though, I realized on Monday that his passing hit me harder than any other wrestler death. Including Hennig's. Or Eddie's. Or any of the other countless talents that left our world too soon. Back in the 80s wrestling boom, we saw more of Heenan than we did of any one in-ring performer. Not only was "The Brain" managing several talents, from Rick Rude to Andre to Haku, but he was doing color commentary and co-hosting Prime Time with Gorilla Monsoon. He was the most prevalent personality during that time period.
What made Heenan so great is that, although he never changed who his "weasel" character was at its core, he could shift back and forth between comedy and villainy. He could be a total boob and also a viscous son of a bitch. Leading the charge against the Hulkster countless times, whether it was with Paul Ordorff, King Kong Bundy (at WrestleMania II) or Andre (at WrestleMania III), Heenan was the company's resident Hogan-hater. No other manager targeted the Hogan the way Heenan did. To do this, you had to have teeth as a villain. And to me, as an outlying Hogan-hating kid (okay, I didn't hate Hogan, I just never rooted for him), Heenan was my voice.
On the flip side, Heenan was a master comedian with impeccable timing. I watched a handful of Prime Time over the past few days on the Network and, not only does it still hold up, but it's freakin' crazy how loose and unscripted it all is. Not totally unscripted, I understand, but for the most part it was. We're so used to everyone's rhetoric nowadays being controlled down to the last trademark and catchphrase that to go back and watch Bobby and Gorilla riff off each other is like a swig of cold water in the Sahara.
The way they would casually and quietly bicker. Sometimes things just got so subtle that they'd just stare at each other. Or just say one word. It's brilliant. I know sometimes it's hard to share what you're nostalgic about with other people because it's impossible to fully explain what you felt and why you felt it, especially if it's something that doesn't necessarily hold up in a rewatch. But Prime Time holds up. It's so deadpan and delightful. And what seeing it again did for me too was that it sucked me back to a time when I couldn't wait to see ANY wrestling match. I wanted to see, and pay close attention to, every single match they aired. Even something like - I dunno, what's one I JUST watched? - Barry Horowitz vs Tim Horner. I got into it easily. Back then, a one-on-one contest, for ostensibly nothing but a hopeful win, was everything.
A ton of credit should go to Monsoon here too. The "straight man" role can easily be a thankless one but Monsoon put his own spin on it by CONSTANTLY giving Heenan s***. It went way beyond the "Will you stop!" Monsoon laid into Heenan every chance he got and all Bobby had to offer back, usually, were flimsy hilarious excuses like a small child getting caught in a lie. Sometimes it was playful and other times the two of them would really go dark and deep about why they disliked each other. Again, most of it never resorted to yelling. And while Heenan is the one labeled as the liar, Gorilla was lying in his own way. In a way that I strangely noticed as a young lad.
Monsoon was the company guy. He had the singular story to tell about each and every feud. This was right and that was wrong. Sometimes, Gorilla was wrong because the story itself was wrong, but he had to say it anyway. In one of the Network episodes I was watching recently, the full hype machine was going for No Holds Barred. Heenan was, of course, lying about how Zeus was scripted to win in the end but the producers and editors and Hogan stabbed him in the back. That's, naturally, absurd and not meant to be believed at all. But Gorilla was laying in deeper lies. He said "I know a lot of people out there haven't seen the movie yet because they're waiting for the crowds to die down."
Monsoon there is pretending that there were huge rabid crowds for No Holds Barred and that fans were choosing NOT to see it because they didn't want to get caught in the madness of what was clearly a blockbuster movie. FAT. BLATANT. LIE. Total false propaganda. Heenan lied ridiculously so that Monsoon would somehow sound sane. As someone who went and saw No Holds Barred in the theater, I can tell you that the tumbleweeds and I thought it was pretty dumb.
But then, like a good heel, Heenan would slip in the truth every chance he could get. Like mentioning how lousy Hogan was in the movie, specifically during the tender love scene. Of course, there's no way Monsoon could say that, but it was certainly true. Heenan was there to cut down the babyfaces. Not in a way that could end their career, no. Heenan was firstly a master of cutting himself down and making himself look foolish. No, Bobby, being "The Brain," would point out, every chance he could get, that heroes were stupid. Every time I wondered "Now why would Tito Santana fall for a trick so obvious?" Heenan was there to remind me that babyfaces had huge hearts but meager minds.
Back to No Holds Barred for a sec. Aside from the infamous "dooookieeee" scene, I'll always resent the movie for both showing me a filled-to-the-brim urinal trough in a dive bar bathroom and then NOT having anyone land in it during the bar fight that ensued. Worst Chekhov's Gun ever.
Continue on for more from RAW and SmackDown Live...
Continues
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire