September 25, 2017 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: The deaths of Bobby Heenan and Otto Wanz

Bobby Heenan, the greatest wrestling manager of all-time and one of the best all-around talents in the history of the industry passed away on 9/17 from organ failure after nearly 16 years of constant health problems that started with throat cancer.

Heenan was 72 at the time of his death.

Born Raymond Louis Heenan in Chicago, he is the single most quick-witted and funniest person I have ever met.

Before the cancer ruined his ability to talk, a phone call to Heenan was essentially the same as the old dial-a-joke, except instead of one joke, the jokes came after every sentence you finished as long as the phone call went. In person, whether it was making fun of somebody, or the situation, or of people in wrestling, or the world itself, he seemed to always be on.

Yes, at the same time, he had the knack during his career as a manager, which lasted more than two decades, to take a quality that most would consider positive, and use it in an obnoxious and arrogant enough fashion that people would hate him.

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