Bobby Heenan at Bash at the Beach 1994

[OGBoardPoster2005]

He just looks so damn sad. Any reason?

[Doctor Of Style]

He's working for WCW. Heenan has said that WWF was like working for the New York Yankees, but WCW was like the Toledo Mud Hens. He only went there for the perks...a lighter schedule, health insurance, and to be closer to his daughter while she went to college.

[Zach]

When did he ever NOT seem sad at WCW?

[The Sam]

Was there anyone besides Lance Storm who was not sad about being in WCW?

[Ryushinku]

I do wonder - was he always miserable in WCW? Certainly he's said so later, but during all those 80-odd weeks when Nitro was beating Raw, getting huge ratings, huge crowds, huge buyrates?

Even with WCW being run like an octopus trying to beat itself up, wasn't there ever a time where he felt "Yeah, we're doing pretty good, this is nice"?
Even a little trickle-down effect of being the top wrestling company in the US for nearly two years?

Or was it even then that he was sad because he wasn't in the WWF, how badly they were doing and dealing with stuff he didn't like in WCW?
I don't know if it could've been as cut-and-dried as Bobby says.

[CMWaters]

He was sad for the fact that he wasn't with his BroMance partner Gorilla anymore.

That and in character, Hogan was coming in.

[Zach]

He went from working with one of his best friends, and someone universally loved by everyone, Gorilla Monsoon, to working with someone universally hated by everyone, Tony Schiavone

[Deleted]

Too much generalizing in this thread.

Not everyone hated working for WCW. That's a myth perpetuated by guys like Heenan and Flair who just suck up to whatever company they're doing business with. I'm sure he would have rather stayed with Vince, but he wanted his neck surgery financed more.

Tony Schiavone wasn't universally hated. Plenty of people like Schiavone and miss his voice on play by play. Tony admits that he made some mistakes in his relationship with Bobby when Bobby got fired, but before that they got along just fine. Bobby has been the vindictive one in that relationship.

[somsta]

He felt they weren't being fair to Flair.

[berlynwright]

Sept 12, 2014 11:16:24 GMT -5 Zach said:

He went from working with one of his best friends, and someone universally loved by everyone, Gorilla Monsoon, to working with someone universally hated by everyone, Tony Schiavone

Schiavone WAS a good announcer

[Professor Chaos]

He had finally got away from Hogan and here he comes again.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Sept 12, 2014 12:11:50 GMT -5 @tafkaga said:

Too much generalizing in this thread.

Not everyone hated working for WCW. That's a myth perpetuated by guys like Heenan and Flair who just suck up to whatever company they're doing business with. I'm sure he would have rather stayed with Vince, but he wanted his neck surgery financed more.

Tony Schiavone wasn't universally hated. Plenty of people like Schiavone and miss his voice on play by play. Tony admits that he made some mistakes in his relationship with Bobby when Bobby got fired, but before that they got along just fine. Bobby has been the vindictive one in that relationship.

That could be true of Heenan except for the whole not having a contract with anyone since WCW fired him. He got brought in to do a few WrestleMania things, but those were one offs and a pile of his WCW bashing came from his book, which WWF had nothing to do with at all.

[DoubleDare]

He had a feeling jesse venturas time in wcw was coming to an end, that damn hogan!

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

Sept 13, 2014 1:53:50 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

Sept 12, 2014 12:11:50 GMT -5 @tafkaga said:

Too much generalizing in this thread.

Not everyone hated working for WCW. That's a myth perpetuated by guys like Heenan and Flair who just suck up to whatever company they're doing business with. I'm sure he would have rather stayed with Vince, but he wanted his neck surgery financed more.

Tony Schiavone wasn't universally hated. Plenty of people like Schiavone and miss his voice on play by play. Tony admits that he made some mistakes in his relationship with Bobby when Bobby got fired, but before that they got along just fine. Bobby has been the vindictive one in that relationship.

That could be true of Heenan except for the whole not having a contract with anyone since WCW fired him. He got brought in to do a few WrestleMania things, but those were one offs and a pile of his WCW bashing came from his book, which WWF had nothing to do with at all.

Not to mention that he wasn't exactly gushing over WWE during a Fanfest Q&A in 2005 (I think). I can't remember what led into it, but the remark made to Jim Cornette was, "You're sitting. If you don't know where you're sitting, you could work for WWE." Jim replied, "I tried that, I was over qualified." Bobby simply replied, "I'm sitting." It seems like some more jokes were made, with Bobby at one point actually saying, "There goes my Wrestlemanias." When he got more serious about it, he said, "What they have now is a great product - for the people who like that. I come from a different era." At the end, he closed by saying, "There will be wrestling again," implying that he didn't really view what they were doing as wrestling.

[Deleted]

That's why I said "doing business with", not necessarily "working for". Heenan made WWE appearances after WCW, including appearing on a number of DVD's in which his voice was used to disparage whatever WWE wanted disparaged. Heenan is a businessman who butters the bread of whoever is cutting him the best checks. By 2005, it was a foregone conclusion that his announcing days were over. Aside from that, I don't interpret Bobby's comments about "there will be wrestling again" to be a bash on WWE so much as he was expressing that it wasn't his personal taste. If he wanted to bury the product, he would have buried it.

[chazraps]

But, who's sad? Is he on?

[RowdyRobbyPiper]

Sept 13, 2014 10:42:48 GMT -5 "Playboy" Don Douglas said:

Sept 13, 2014 1:53:50 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

That could be true of Heenan except for the whole not having a contract with anyone since WCW fired him. He got brought in to do a few WrestleMania things, but those were one offs and a pile of his WCW bashing came from his book, which WWF had nothing to do with at all.

Not to mention that he wasn't exactly gushing over WWE during a Fanfest Q&A in 2005 (I think). I can't remember what led into it, but the remark made to Jim Cornette was, "You're sitting. If you don't know where you're sitting, you could work for WWE." Jim replied, "I tried that, I was over qualified." Bobby simply replied, "I'm sitting." It seems like some more jokes were made, with Bobby at one point actually saying, "There goes my Wrestlemanias." When he got more serious about it, he said, "What they have now is a great product - for the people who like that. I come from a different era." At the end, he closed by saying, "There will be wrestling again," implying that he didn't really view what they were doing as wrestling.

The product of modern-day WWE is a far cry from the 1980's WWF.

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

Sept 13, 2014 11:16:20 GMT -5 @tafkaga said:

That's why I said "doing business with", not necessarily "working for". Heenan made WWE appearances after WCW, including appearing on a number of DVD's in which his voice was used to disparage whatever WWE wanted disparaged. Heenan is a businessman who butters the bread of whoever is cutting him the best checks. By 2005, it was a foregone conclusion that his announcing days were over. Aside from that, I don't interpret Bobby's comments about "there will be wrestling again" to be a bash on WWE so much as he was expressing that it wasn't his personal taste. If he wanted to bury the product, he would have buried it.

Besides Warrior and WCW, both of which Heenan has consistently disparaged, who did he get in line to disparage? And I would argue that saying something isn't wrestling when that's what it's supposed to be is burial enough.

[Deleted]

Sept 13, 2014 12:04:17 GMT -5 "Playboy" Don Douglas said:

Sept 13, 2014 11:16:20 GMT -5 @tafkaga said:

That's why I said "doing business with", not necessarily "working for". Heenan made WWE appearances after WCW, including appearing on a number of DVD's in which his voice was used to disparage whatever WWE wanted disparaged. Heenan is a businessman who butters the bread of whoever is cutting him the best checks. By 2005, it was a foregone conclusion that his announcing days were over. Aside from that, I don't interpret Bobby's comments about "there will be wrestling again" to be a bash on WWE so much as he was expressing that it wasn't his personal taste. If he wanted to bury the product, he would have buried it.

Besides Warrior and WCW, both of which Heenan has consistently disparaged, who did he get in line to disparage? And I would argue that saying something isn't wrestling when that's what it's supposed to be is burial enough.

Warrior and WCW are specifically who I was referring to there.  Your point is that Heenan would have talked trash about them without any incentive from WWE, which proves that he wasn't doing it to suck up to WWE.  I agree partially, but Heenan has proved over the years that a story doesn't have to be true in order for him to repeat it 1000 times.  If WWE is writing him a check to tell some stories about how WWE is just so much better than WCW, he'll tell them.  If WWE had gone out of business and WCW was the one writing checks to performers to talk about WWE's shortcomings, Heenan would have told the stories and taken the checks.  I'm not necessarily trashing him for that, because most performers would fall into that same category.

To your second point, WWE is sports entertainment.  They've been exclusively using that phrase for a while now, unless they absolutely have to use the word "wrestle" such as in "WrestleMania".  WWE itself doesn't want to be confused for "wrestling".  Heenan was merely acknowledging that separation, but choosing his words very carefully so as not to sound like he was bashing it.  Again, if Heenan wanted to call Vince out and bury sports entertainment... he would not be so careful with his wording.

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

Sept 13, 2014 12:31:32 GMT -5 @tafkaga said:

Sept 13, 2014 12:04:17 GMT -5 "Playboy" Don Douglas said:

Besides Warrior and WCW, both of which Heenan has consistently disparaged, who did he get in line to disparage? And I would argue that saying something isn't wrestling when that's what it's supposed to be is burial enough.

Warrior and WCW are specifically who I was referring to there.  Your point is that Heenan would have talked trash about them without any incentive from WWE, which proves that he wasn't doing it to suck up to WWE.  I agree partially, but Heenan has proved over the years that a story doesn't have to be true in order for him to repeat it 1000 times.  If WWE is writing him a check to tell some stories about how WWE is just so much better than WCW, he'll tell them.  If WWE had gone out of business and WCW was the one writing checks to performers to talk about WWE's shortcomings, Heenan would have told the stories and taken the checks.  I'm not necessarily trashing him for that, because most performers would fall into that same category.

To your second point, WWE is sports entertainment.  They've been exclusively using that phrase for a while now, unless they absolutely have to use the word "wrestle" such as in "WrestleMania".  WWE itself doesn't want to be confused for "wrestling".  Heenan was merely acknowledging that separation, but choosing his words very carefully so as not to sound like he was bashing it.  Again, if Heenan wanted to call Vince out and bury sports entertainment... he would not be so careful with his wording.

And no one outside of WWE calls it sports entertainment. Fans, casual observers, media, etc. It's always wrestling. I'm not saying he was sitting there thinking that WWE's product was the worst damn thing in the world, but I think that's clearly a knock. I'm also curious about what untrue stories were repeated a thousand times.