Author Brian R. Solomon has written an extensively researched biography on the late, great wrestler and wrestling personality Gorilla Monsoon (“Irresistible Force: The Life And Times Of Gorilla Monsoon”).
Solomon recently chatted with Web Is Jericho via Youngstown Studio about the book including the most surprising things he learned in his research, Gorilla’s financial success in the business, Monsoon’s relationships with both Bobby Heenan and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and much more.
One of several previously untold stories in the book highlights how Monsoon and Heenan often kept up their on screen relationship even when cameras weren’t rolling. While interviewing Heenan’s daughter, Jessica, Solomon uncovered a hilarious instance of the famous WWF announcing pair doing their schtick at a high school baseball game much to Jessica’s dismay.
“I had to stop her. We were in the middle of the interview and she just glossed over this thing,” Solomon explained. “And I said, ‘Wait, we gotta go back to that. Please explain this in detail.”
“So apparently, this was after Bobby had left the company and he went to WCW. But Bobby and Gorilla stayed in touch. They continued to see each other socially. Their families were friends. They went on vacations together still even when they were working for competing companies. So at one point, Gorilla had gone down to Florida to visit the Heenans, and he was having dinner with them. And Jessica had to leave. There was a baseball game at her high school, and she was going down there to just see the cute boys on the team and to see her friends and hang out. And Gorilla and Bobby decided to make a surprise appearance.”
Solomon continued: “She said they showed up at the game, and they drew all attention to themselves, and they sat in the stands and they started doing their thing. They were calling the game in their own way and doing the Gorilla Bobby thing in front of just … it’s a high school baseball game. How many people could there have been there? 100 at most? And Jessica said, she’s a teenager, so part of that is ‘I’m embarrassed. Oh my God my dad and my dad’s friend, what are they doing?’ But she said part of it was also, ‘This is amazing. I can’t admit it because I’m a teenage girl, but oh my God this is hilarious. This is magic happening here.’ And no one got to see it unless you were there at that baseball game.”
Check out Solomon’s full interview below, and preorder his book via ECW Press.
