Posted By James Walsh on 03/26/26


A few years ago, Paul Heyman did a talk show and said some off color remarks about the legacy of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. This bugged me but I let it go because if someone compared me to another person taht came before me every time I left the house, I'd probably develop a chip on my shoulder towards that person also. With that being said, Paul Heyman dobled down on his remarks regarding Bobby Heenan recently and I felt it would be appropriate to give an objective view.

In life, days pass by and you never give those days a second thought. But, some days stick with you for a lifetime. In 1990, I was 8 going on 9 years old and was over at my friend's house trading WWF wrestling trading cards. It had all the earmarks of a regular old "never think about it again" day until my friend's father came over and joined us at the kitchen table and started talking wrestling to us. My friend, Mauro DeSantis, was the child of an immigrant family from Italy and his father ran a car and body shop near town. So, while his son and I were arguing slightly over one of the Hulk Hogan cards because to us, the Hulkster was the Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, and Elvis Presley of pro wrestling, his father started laughing. With a thick Italian accent as he rifled through the cards, "None of these guys are more impressive than Bruno Sammartino or Ivan Putski." This conversation, I assure you, was not meaningful to my friend's father and if my former best friend ever reads this post, he might not even remember it. But, it has stuck with me for a lifetime. Why? Well, I took both Sociology and Psychology 101, 102 201, and 202 in college. I strongly considered making Psychology my Major or, at minimum, my Minor. The human condition and how people process and internalize data interests me on a higher level. So, my degree in Technical Writing and Communications (TWC) now known as Multimedia Writing & Technical Communications might do me well if I write the instruction manual to a desk fan you purchase at your local big box store. But, some of what I learned along the way lends itself to writing an instruction manual to the human brain and how we look at things including how we put certain things on pedestals.

I mentioned the brief encounter with my friend's father talking about how his generation of pro wrestling was better than ours at the time because everyone believes their generation was the greatest. To this very day, I can successfully debate with anyone that the music, movies, TV, and sports of the years of 1986 to 1992 were the golden era. If you look at my favorites, almost everything I love has roots in that time period. Is it because things were just better in those years and creatively clicked on another level? Perhaps. It also could be that those were the years that my mind was most receptive to things and because those are the things that were around while my mind was most open, I romanticize them above and beyond their actual greatness. In a sense, I think we all do that. I believe my friend's father did that with who he viewed as the best wrestlers ever. However, that is not to dismiss his feelings nor the importance of what he views to be great. After all, Bruno Sammartino and Ivan Putski are two of the greatest wrestlers of all time... Not because my friend's father said it in a flippant conversation while rifling through our next generation, at that time, trading cards... Instead, it is simply because they were.

So, in my one sentence way, allow me to round out why I started this column with the above story.

Bobby Heenan is the greatest wrestling manager of all time and stands in a league all his own.

Some of you will read that above statement and try to justify my view as "Well, you grew up with Heenan so that is why you feel that way." There is some truth to that. But, I also grew up with Paul Heyman on my TV. And, I've seen both men's entire careers. It isn't apples to oranges to put one man above the other. It is very much an apples to apples comparison. At the core of it, fruit pun intended, one man is the clear victor and it is "The Brain."

Lets look at the life and times of both the "Brain" and the "Wise Man" and compare.

Bobby Heenan built a career in pro wrestling after dropping out of school. Yes, children, the man we all consider "The Brain" and to be amongst the smartest and quickest humans ever to speak into a microphone never achieved a high school diploma or GED. He left school and started working for Dick the Bruiser's Indiana territory doing odd jobs before he found his way onto the show. Heenan willed his way into the wrestling business doing a job that few before him had. No, it wasn't like Heenan filled out a job application to be the next Legal Secretary at a law firm in New York City. Heenan left school to find a job in an industry that really didn't have a role for him to fill nor a vacancy to do so. Heenan, to some degree, invented his own career.

Heenan's career would span decades starting in the middle portion of the 1960's and extend into the 2000's before T&J and cancer impacted Heenan's greatest asset, his ability to speak. From setting up rings to managing wrestlers as a heat magnet in Indiana to the point where people bought tickets simply to see Heenan, always a manager first and never a wrestler first, take a beating from the local hero, Heenan was off to the races. In the AWA in Minnesota, Heenan would manage the likes of Ray "The Crippler" Stevens and Nick Bockwinkel amongst others once again being the heat magnet that could talk his way into people wanting to see him get beaten up. In fact, my only signed item of "The Brain" is not a picture of him from the WWE or WCW, it is a picture of him in the ring with Bockwinkel and Stevens as this was my favorite time in Bobby's career even though it happened, in large part, before I was born. Psycho analyze that one for me, kids.

Everyone says Hulk Hogan's biggest rival in pro wrestling was Roddy Piper. On the surface, you might think that to be the case. But, if you really do give it some thought, was there any more long-standing rival to Hulk Hogan than Bobby Heenan? From the starting to slump AWA, which Heenan called claims stood for Alzheimer's Wrestling Association or All the World's Assholes - You take your pick! All the way to the very much expanding bright lights of the cartoonish World Wrestling Federation of the 1980's and even into WCW in the mid to late 1990's, Heenan was always involved in Hulk Hogan's affairs either on the opposite side of the ring to the "Immortal" one or behind the microphone. More on the latter in a minute.

In the WWF, if Hulk Hogan was responsible for all the kids buying tickets and merchandise, Heenan was responsible for people buying tickets to see him do what he, at that point, had already done successfully for over 20 years... Make people want to see him get beaten up! And, Heenan did do this from 1984 through 1992 as a manager. But, the entertainment based WWE did indeed lend itself to Heenan's humor. Heenan was given his own half hour talk show as an off-shoot of WWF Prime Time Wrestling, the company's flagship show before that title went to RAW in 1993. The Bobby Heenan Show was devised to be a poor attempt at a late night talk show format with less than A rated celebrities. In fact, I recently just interviewed Jameson who was Heenan's right-hand-man on the Bobby Heenan Show. Jameson said, "Bobby was great. He could have gone to Hollywood and have made more money, probably, as a comedian." You can find that interview on the Wrestling Epicenter website. I also interviewed Bobby Heenan himself twice. So, you know, click on over there and stuff. Anyway, cheap plug over. Back to business!

After Heenan retired from managing, he had a wildly successful stint as a Broadcast Journalist, an expression Heenan coined and that I use on my job resume to this day to describe myself. Heenan would call the WWF's top shows including Superstars, Challenge, All American, and Prime Time Wrestling as well as pay-per-views with various hosts but most notably Vince McMahon or Gorilla Monsoon. If pro wrestling ever had an Abbott and Costello comedy duo, it was the Brain and the Gorilla. Their chemistry made watching a show full of squash matches that each lasted 2 minutes and had an outcome never in doubt from the get-go more enjoyable to watch and listen to than any wrestling show on TV today. Seriously, I'd rather watch "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan versus Chad Duffy from 1991 WWF TV than any match involving Will Ospreay listening to Excalibur suck the air out of the room as he marvels at Ospreay's athleticism.

In later years, Heenan would jump to WCW and elevate their standing. Do you really believe the Monday Night War's would have sounded the same if "The Brain" wasn't helping tell the stories of WCW? Because he was almost exclusively an announcer at this point after having suffered a broken neck taking a leg drop off the top rope in All Japan Pro Wrestling from Atsushi Onita over a decade prior. Working for WCW, a Turner property, Heenan could finally get the neck surgery he couldn't previously. Insurance matters, kids! Anyway, in spite of limited physical interactions on WCW TV, Heenan's voice was a major part of what made WCW seem big league.

"Yeah, but who's side is he on?"

Heenan gets a lot of flack to this day from wrestling purisst who claim Heenan shouting, "Yeah, but who's side is he on" at Bash at the Beach 1996 when Hulk Hogan was coming down to the ring to presumably make a babyface save for WCW. Instead, Hulk turned heel and formed the New World Order. Critics, to this day, insist it detracted from the moment. Critics are wrong. Had "The Brain" who spent the better part of 20 years, at that point, battling the Hulkster in different companies throughout the United States suddenly became the world's biggest Hulkamaniac - A friend to the end! Well, it would have seemed out of place, wouldn't it? Seriously. Imagine the stage being set and you have "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Kevin Nash down in the middle of the ring and Hulk Hogan emerges from the back and instead of Heenan, who always took shots at Hulk, suddenly decided to say lines like Dusty Rhodes delivered that night. "Go get 'em, Hulkster!" Or, perhaps more in Heenan's voice, "I never thought I'd be happier to see Hulk Hogan in my life!" Would that not have foreshadowed what was about to happen more than what Heenan actually said? I think it would have. I really do.

Anyway, Heenan would return to the WWE after the sale of WCW in 2001 and call a match at WrestleMania XVII and make a few appearances on documentaries for the WWE in the years to follow as his ability to speak and be the sharp "Brain" we came to know and live was stripped from him by cancer.

Now, lets talk about Paul Heyman's legacy. I'll be fair.

Paul Heyman's start was also like Bobby Heenan's. While it happened 20 years later, Heyman willed his way into pro wrestling through magazines and any means he could. He made contacts, you could call it "latched on to", talent such as Eddie Gilbert and Bam Bam Bigelow while working his way into the industry by any means possible. Appearing in local territories far from his New York home such as Continental in Alabama to nationally syndicated broadacsts like Pro Wrestling This Week, a wrestling magazine style show showcasing the territories of the mid to late 1980's weekly hosted by Joe Pedicino, Gordon Solie, and Boni Blackstone, Heyman got himself over withw restling fans with his obnoxious delivery... Come to think of it, while there is less hair and more weight on Heyman today, he hasn't really changed his "act" up all that much. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Heyman, who was known as Paul E. Dangerously at the time, probably had his biggest break to that point managing the Midnight Express in the later days of the AWA. This would lead to Heyman getting an opportunity with WCW not all that long later and the formation of the "Dangerous Alliance" faction, very much in the "Bobby Heenan Family" wheelhouse.

Heyman's biggest wrestling contribution came with ECW. While some, including me, could argue that ECW would have ever existed without Tod Gordon who Heyman largely successfully erased from the history books, the juggernaut that ECW was absolutely helped reshape the wrestling world. Compete with a more hardcore wrestling style and featuring more sexy content including women wearing less clothes and taking more bumps, usually at the hands of a much larger male wrestler, ECW established itself as a genuine "alternative" to the WWF and WCW products of the time.

Missy Hyatt calls Heyman the David Koresh of pro wrestling. Koresh was a cult leader that convinced many people to give their lives up in protection of his self-serving mission. You may remember that Koresh died in the fire due to the bungled handling the incident in Waco, Texas by the Clinton administration which saw dozens of innocent children burned alive. But, I digress. Heyman could convince talent to put their bodies and well being on the line for his, especially when it was growing in influence, relatively small promotion. While I loved ECW and was one of the few who would wear a Hulkamania T shirt to school one day and an EC FN' W T shirt the next, there is little point trying to deny that Paul's persuasive speak encouraged men and women to do things to themselves for his financial benefit and certainly not their own financial benefit.

In 1997, Paul Heyman was put on the WWE payroll and received a supplemental payment from Vince McMahon's promotion to keep ECW afloat. In a sense, ECW had elements of a developmental territory of the biggest company in the world all the while convicing its fan base that it was counter-culture. In 2000, ECW stopped paying talent as Paul's primary focus went from ECW to trying to make movies with the God awful remake of Rollerball. Mike Awesome, an incredibly talented big man wrestler, was ECW's champion at this time and had this wild notion that the champion and poster boy of the 3rd biggest wrestling company in the United States should, oh, I don't know, be paid for his work? Well, WCW offered to pay Awesome and he took that payment and sought life there. Paul Heyman treated Awesome as though he had decided to fight for the Nazi's in World War II and hindered the remainder of Awesome's life and career. But, no one has ever explained this to me.

Why was Taz and the Dudley Boyz going to the WWF, the largest company in the world, perfectly fine. But, Mike Awesome going to WCW a sin worthy of getting Joey Styles so worked up, he wished suicide on Awesome only 2 years before that became a reality? It was Heyman's ability to be that David Koresh character behind the scenes and in front of it as well to make people believe that somehow, going to work to actually get paid by the number two company that was simply pure evil in his view was unforgivable. But, going to the biggest company in the world was not. I guess being on the pay roll of the biggest company buys you clout.

In 2001, a beaten up and scared ECW roster who had shortened their lives and careers in the name of those 3 letters sat and watched Heyman show up on WWE RAW as an announcer effectively confirming that ECW was dead and never truly coming back. In the world, there are times that things happen and we can label those things as "Dick Moves." In pro wrestling, this was Paul Heyman's "Dick Move Check Mate."

Paul Heyman had finally achieved what his life's goal was and it was never to run a counter-culture promotion. It was to work for the WWF. And, 25 years later, you cannot say he hasn't made the most of it.

Latching on to the coat tails of Brock Lesnar, CM Punk, and others, Heyman's heel persona has made him one of the longest lasting performers in company history. With the gift of gab that has always benefitted him, he's made pretty shitty stories with no real ending such as the Bloodline seem like appointment television for years. If you were into it, you would argue it was the best stuff on WWE TV in decades. If you objectively looked at it, you'd see it was long winded and dull at the best of times. But, he shined it to make the long-winded and dull seem amazing. That truly is a gift.

Paul Heyman did not honor Hulk Hogan when he passed in July of 2025. If aiding in Miek Awesome's demise or turning his back on an entire locker room he worked up into giving the better parts of their lives to his vision wasn't the worst thing he ever did, this was. I will never forgive this decision nor the same decision made by any who made it. There's a respect factor in life. You don't give it, you earn it. None of them earned it from me. And, none will ever get it. Ever. That goes for each and every one of those that took some asinine political stance. Yyou made the wrong choice.

So, there is the legacy of both men.

Bobby Heenan created a job title for himself that really didn't quite exist before him and made it a thing. He broke his neck for pro wrestling, provided the comedic soundtrack for at least 2 boom periods of pro wrestling, and influenced countless people including Paul Heyman himself.

Paul Heyman willed his way into the business , achieved success in the dying days of the territories, made it to WCW, cheated Tod Gordon out of his own ECW creation, screwed everyone who ever gave their blood to ECW, and has suckled at the power teat of whoever is in charge of WWE to maintain his opportunity for as long as possible. Objectively, he could always talk his ass off and might go down as one of the best promo guys in the history of the industry.

Who is better?

Well, that is a matter of opinion. Was Henxdrix a better guitar player than Eddie Van Halen? Probably not. But, would there have been a Van Halen without Hendrix? Also, probably not. Was Bobby Heenan a better talker than Paul Heyman? I think they are probably closer to being on par with each other than Hendrix and Van Halen. But, I do believe there would not have been a spot for Paul Heyman had Bobby Heenan not, more or less, created it. Don't confuse longevity, and at this point, Paul heyman has a longer longevity on major pro wrestling TV than Bobby Heenan ever did, with greatness. The Brooklyn Brawler and The Miz have had longer WWE careers than Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Roddy Piper combined. But, almost nobody being serious believes the Brawler or the Miz could hold a candle to the legacies of the "Rock N Wrestling Connection" greats. And yet, there is something to be said about a man who worked in WCW in 1992 as a heel manager still kicking off WWE RAW in 2026 cutting a promo. That cannot be sniffed at.

In the end, I think the original is almost always the best. And, I believe the case of which came first, the chicken or the egg plays a major part in ranking the greats. While the familiarity of modern times often allows people to be ranked higher because it is more fresh in our memory banks... And, while I could just be in Italian immigrant turning his nose up at trading cards of Hulk Hogan because he wasn't as good as Bruno Sammartino in his opinion, I do think Paul Heyman got one thing absolutely right in his Bobby Heenan rant.

Bobby Heenan is not in Paul Heyman's league. He's far above it. And, the history books will reflect that... If Paul Heyman isn't the one writing them... Or, if he doesn't hold the David Korsh style power over whoever does.