Producer Recalls Bobby Heenan Being Named As 1988 All-Madden Team Manager

Bobby “The Brain” Heenan was the manager of the 1988 All-Madden team, and producer Richie Zyontz recently recalled how it happened. Zyontz spoke with The Athletic for a new feature on the situation, and you can see a couple of highlights (and video of the announcement) below:

On reaching out to WWE about bringing Heenan in for the role: “I am a huge wrestling fan, and I don’t want to give myself credit for this without being 100 percent certain. It feels self-serving to say it. But I don’t recall a lot of wrestling guys working on the crew. I am sure we got to talking about how we need a manager for this unruly group, and ‘manager’ gave you the connotations of a wrestling manager. Bobby ‘The Brain’ was huge at the time. I mean, it was going to be Bobby or Lou Albano. That show was so much fun to work on because we were able to throw ideas out and just do it. There were no rules.”

On WWE’s involvement in the scenario: “What the WWF ended up sending was this elaborate and staged thing during one of their tapings. We were like, ‘Holy, moly.’ We just put in this request and told them our plans, and they concocted this whole scenario of Heenan accepting the offer. They choreographed the whole thing.”