I want to get this out of the way at the start. I’ll be moving my reviews to earlier in the week Monday and Tuesday since I think it’s best for me to actually write my reviews over the weekend, especially with football season ending soon. I’m also going to be changing the format of my Ring of Honor DVD reviews, but I’ll talk more about that next week. For now, I’m going to be examining a very recent WWE DVD release. It’s a DVD on one of the greatest managers of all time. Bobby Heenan is not only a Hall of Famer who entertained millions of fans for over thirty years, but I also share a hometown with Mr. Heenan. This two disk set had a lot of potential with the wealth of material available in a 30 year career. Let’s see how it all turned out.
Documentary
This is not unlike a documentary you might see on A&E about Bobby Heenan’s life. It also feels like WWE most of the time. Generic, homogenized and not a full picture of what the subject is. Heenan has had an incredible career. He’s been involved in the business for what seems like forever. This is a man who managed Nick Bockwinkel in the late 1970s but was calling matches for guys who are still involved with WWE like Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho (I know he’s not around now, but go with it).
With a run time of 50 minutes, this feels more like an outline rather than a full-fledged look at the man’s life. New fans will get the sense of his significance but won’t get to know who the man is. Obviously, Heenan’s lack of involvement hurt what could have been one of WWE’s best DVD documentaries. Recent health problems prevented Heenan from talking his life and career. Only through his work within WWE can we see who the man was. One of the best best lines is actually shown in the commercial when Heenan tells a man who’s been married 21 years that he could have gotten out if he had killed his wife. Amazing how Heenan could have gotten this zinger through the squeaky clean lens of WWE, both back in the early 1990s and even now.
One of the major positives of the doc is of course the highlights and zingers. Everything from his interactions with Gorilla Monsoon both in the studio and on commentary to what he did at ringside in order to help his men. Heenan also took many bumps throughout his career and even stepped into the ring a few times to don the weasel suit or become involved when the WWE thought Heenan could really help sell a feud even further.
A couple of questions I had concerned “The Bobby Heenan Show” and WCW. Was Heenan’s show not a success ratingswise or was it just an experiment for a few weeks? And with WCW, Heenan suggested many times his disgruntled feelings about the company in a couple of shoot interviews. I would have loved to have heard from some former WCW employees about their perspectives on what Heenan was like during that time period. I also wanted to know about Heenan’s release from the company. Incredible to think Heenan lost his job on Nitro to MARK BLEEPING MADDEN. And I believe he was replaced by Stevie Ray on Thunder. If I’m incorrect about the latter observation, please let me know.
Ultimately, this was a passable documentary which could have been greatly enhanced by great special features that showcase Heenan at his best.
Disc 1 Special Features
All of the features on the first disk are various interviews and vignettes done between 1976 and 2004. We see Heenan with sideburns winning a manager of the year award. A segment is shown from WWF television where Heenan talks about not being a weasel on Tuesday Night Titans. We see Heenan at his best with Gorilla Monsoon visiting Busch Gardens. With some perspective, the end of Monday Night Raw might have been the saddest part of the entire DVD as a feud that went over a decade, Heenan and Monsoon, ended rather inconspicuously with Monsoon tossing Heenan out of the building. Just six years later, Monsoon passed away, and the real feelings of Heenan came out in a brief monologue Monday Nitro when he talked about the loss of his friend. The last special feature was Heenan’s induction into the WWE Hall of Fame back in 2004. Other than Ric Flair, Heenan’s speech ranks as my favorite of all my time. My only regret is we didn’t get another full disk of segments and interviews with Heenan at his best.
Disk 2 Special Features
I think it’s interesting that for a company that wants to be sports entertainment and run as far away from wrestling as possible, disk two is a series of matches, five of which involved Heenan himself. To try and apply star ratings or critique the workrate would be counterproductive because Heenan never claimed he was the best athlete or wrestler. His personality, gift to gab, and occasional willingness to take bumps are what contributed to his longevity. Here are a list of his matches:
*Battle of the Managers: Bobby Heenan vs. Lord Alfred Hayes (AWA St. Paul, MN – 13th January, 1980)
*Weasel Suit Match: Bobby Heenan vs. Greg Gagne (AWA St. Paul, MN – 17th August, 1980)
*Handicap Match: Hulk Hogan vs. Nick Bockwinkel & Bobby Heenan (AWA – St. Paul, MN – 2nd May, 1981)
*Bobby Heenan vs. Salvatore Bellomo (Madison Square Garden – 26th November, 1984)
*Weasel Suit Match: Bobby Heenan vs. Ultimate Warrior (WrestleFest `88 – 31st July, 1988)
*The Royal Rumble Match (Royal Rumble – 19th January, 1992 Commentary By: Bobby Heenan & Gorilla Monsoon)
*Gimmick Battle Royal (WrestleMania X7 – 1st April, 2001 Commentary By: Bobby Heenan & Gene Okerlund )
The 1992 Royal Rumble is probably one of the laziest inclusions on the collection because it’s on a couple of other DVDs, and Heenan’s only participation comes on commentary. As awesome as the match is and Heenan’s performance is, I’d have much rather seen an hour of promos or vigtnettes. Even better? Episodes of “The Bobby Heenan Show.” Thing is we can probably find a lot of Heenan’s best work on the microphone on YouTube. But including what may as well be lost WWE related program from the archives would make this a unique collection that’s well worth your 20 dollars. I feel like I say this for a lot of WWE releases, but this set really could have been so much more than what it turned out to be.
The Verdict: For a new fan, this is an easy thumbs up because it’s cheap collection and will give a new viewer a taste of what Heenan was all about. For older fans, this is a thumbs down because I’m sure it’s quite easy to find some a lot of these clips elsewhere. The documentary isn’t extraordinary enough to go out of your way to see. I guess this is kind of a mixed review, but one thing that isn’t mixed is the wonderful legacy Heenan left in the world of professional wrestling.
I have mixed feelings about Heenan. I think he is probably the best manager ever. However, I always felt his commentary was a little over-rated. Yeah, he was very funny and quick witted, but he always seemed to be putting himself over, rather than the matches he was calling. He was entertaining, but the job of the announcer is to make you care more about the match and get more out of it. He always seemed to be mocking wrestling on commentary. I think Jesse Ventura set the standard for heel commentators. He was entertaining, but he also always treated the product with respect, so I would put him ahead of Heenan in that regard. However, Heenan was obviously intelligent and very quick witted, and his chemistry with Gorilla Monsoon was terrific. I’d like to watch this at some point, but i won’t go out of my way to get it.