Bobby Heenan & Gorilla Monsoon – The greatest ever
The state of wrestling’s broadcasters in 2009 is about as bad as it gets. Jim Ross, Mike Tenay, Michael Cole, Don West… ugh. It’s putrid. I’ve even grown weary of Jerry Lawler after more than 15 years. Guys who would be best suited for the job seem to be out of the business or doing other things within various promotions (Joey Styles, Jim E. Cornette, Paul Heyman).
More and more I long for the halcyon days of the mid 1980s to early 90s when I was treated to Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura, Gorilla Monsoon and the greatest non-wrestler the industry has ever seen, Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan (yes I know he was a former wrestler, but I refer here to his work as a heel manager & ‘broadcast journalist’ specifically) do the commentary on a wrestling show.
It’s at the point now where I’d almost rather watch an old tape of Ko Ko B. Ware against a jobber like Dale Wolfe or Barry Horowitz over anything on Raw, TNA or Smackdown, simply to listen to Gorilla and Bobby go at it as commentators. Every match these two ever did there are at least 2 or 3 golden nuggets of pure hilarity from Bobby with the help of Gorilla as the exasperated straight-man. Jesse Ventura and Gorilla had some golden moments as well, but they would rarely work together. Jesse was usually Vince’s color guy on the Saturday Night’s Main Event tapings and on the ‘A’ show, Superstars. Jesse & Gorilla only teamed up on the pay-per-views before leaving the company sometime in the summer of 1990 I believe.
But nobody will ever hold a candle to the work Bobby & Gorilla did on Wrestling Challenge and a few of the pay-per-views.
In all the years, and all of the shows, Bobby Heenan & Gorilla Monsoon worked (which I believe spans somewhere from 1986 or 87 to early 1994) I think they reached a high point at Wrestlemania 8. Get a copy of that particular Wrestlemania and just listen to Bobby & Gorilla go… it’s uprorious. You have to remember, at this event, Bobby was the ‘consultant’ to Ric Flair who had a huge world title defense against his hated rival Randy Savage – so Bobby Heenan was playing the role of ‘overly concerned party’ associated to the defending champ Flair to the hilt before the match, and then the ‘devastated sore loser’ for the rest of the show after Flair dropped the strap (the Savage-Flair match occured somewhere in the middle of that Wrestlemania). I’ve never heard Bobby so into commentating during a show – and the results were side-splitting… someone compiled a few of those moments…
…but if you get a chance, watch the whole event again, because there was so much more. Here’s to Bobby & Gorilla, the greatest ever.
