Bobby “The Brain” Heenan was the greatest pro wrestling manager who ever lived, and it’s not really a close race. Bobby was more than just a loud mouth in a louder jacket—he was an artist who worked in insults the way Rembrandt worked in oils, and he managed to do so in a way that ultimately benefited the guys he was roasting.
Bobby’s character was a shameless coward and unrepentant mythomaniac, so anything he said made you want to disagree with him. He would freely alternate between actual criticisms and absurd fictions, which was ingenious—by pointing out a performer’s real shortcomings, but pairing them with obvious lies, he gave the fans permission to overlook those flaws. Incredibly, he could make you look better by making fun of you.
He called the fans “humanoids”—shaped like humans, but not quite people, you know? He was also fond of the term “ham n’ egger”—a person who, whether through stupidity or unsophistication, is incapable of ordering anything more complex than ham and eggs. In his autobiography, he offered this illustrative example:
“He goes home to his rented furniture. He sits between the spring and the cat poop on the couch. He watches his old black and white TV set with aluminum foil around the antenna. As he eats his TV dinner and sips on his lukewarm Busch beer, his wife looks at him and he looks at her.”
Beyond simple insults, Bobby parlayed his hating into being the top villain of the 1980s WWF. He dominated the main event scene by, in the words of Jinx Strange, “Firing assholes out of a t-shirt cannon at Hulk Hogan.” But he was also a menace at every level of the card, including such memorably banal acts of evil as kidnapping Koko B. Ware’s pet parrot.
Later, Bobby would pivot to “broadcast journalism,” opening up a whole new realm of coworker-antagonizing possibilities. He followed his broadcast partner Gorilla Monsoon on vacation to taunt him about how much better the show would be without him. On a very special Christmas episode of Prime Time Wrestling, Bobby showed up in a Santa suit to gleefully tell all the kids at home that St. Nick wasn’t real. He once spent five minutes of live television cackling into a headset when one of his colleagues happened to casually say that “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan was smart.
But perhaps his greatest moment was the 1993 Survivor Series, colloquially known as the Hart Family Massacre. With that entire family of wrestling royalty in attendance, Bobby spent the entire night mercilessly shitting on them. It was a crowning achievement in a career of joyous misanthropy, and really, that’s the magic of The Brain.
When you feel that you’re adrift in a sea of humanoids, it’s easy to give in to misanthropy. And it’s fun, too.
Immortal Quotes:
“Big Boss Man’s mother used to wrestle. She used to wrestle as Battle Sow.”
“It’s not my fault that everyone who works here gets $6 a year and free cheese.”
“When Virgil’s unconscious, he’s usually on his feet talking to you.”
“Now remember this, when a man sticks his hand out to you, you shake it. Then kick him really hard when he’s not looking.”
“Don’t forget the camera flash hit Hogan right in the eye. And Hogan, if you’re sitting on there in the back listening, remember, Hulk, we’ll keep an eye out for you. Hahahaha!”
“He may be strong, he may be big, he may be quick, but between those ears, it’s just a busted up pineapple.”
“His name is Bruce, right? What a stupid name. You have nine months, and you come up with ‘Bruce’?”
“Look at this joker. That forehead goes all the way to the back of his knees.”
“You ever been to Canada? When the plane lands they tell you to set your watch back to 1945.”
“Now, wouldn’t you classify 20 members of the Hart family living together as a ghetto?”
“Her face could hold an eight day rain with all those wrinkles.”
“I know why Hogan came to the building early today. I think he works here. He parks cars for 49 cents.”
“The two things that scare me most about wrestling fans is that they’re allowed to vote and allowed to reproduce.”
“See, what I would do right here now is throw him out and I’d piledrive him on the steps. That way you crack his head open and you break both shoulders at the same time. Good amateur move.”
“It’ll take a good man to beat Tito Santana . . . it just won’t take him very long.”
“Last year Luna won Miss Ontario. Nobody usually wins that.”
“Hulkamania is going to die here tonight in Texas. And what a horrible place to be buried.”
“The bad thing about the Bushwhackers is that win, lose, or draw, you gotta have everything you got on fumigated.”
