Brain vs. Brain

Tale of the Wiki-tape

One of the things you find out on the internet is that priorities are often skewed. Video lectures on Literature from Yale University have roughly .000001% the number views of a video of a monkey using a frog to masturbate.

One of the greatest indicators of how important someone or something is on the internet is the size of that person or thing's particular Wikipedia page. It’s just a theory at this point; it’s in my theory journal right next to the Large Hadron Collider somehow being responsible for the success of ‘Jersey Shore’. I’ll occasionally test the Wiki theory by asking: “Who has the bigger Wikipedia page?”

Today’s contestants: One is a 1981 Nobel Laureate whose research has shaped much of what we know about how the brain works: Roger Sperry. The other used his massive intellect to become one of the greatest managers in WWF/E history: Bobby “The Brain” Heenan.

Robert Sperry's Wiki page

Bobby "the Brain" Heenan's Wiki page

According to Wikipedia: Roger Sperry grew up with his mother Florence, father Francis, and brother Russell in Hartford, CT. It should be noted that none of his immediate family members were important enough to warrant their own wikipedia pages. That’s already a bad sign.

Sperry received his Bachelor’s Degree in English, and a Master’s in psychology from Oberlin College. He joins such other illustrious Oberlin alumni as hippy ice cream connoisseur Jerry Greenfield (Ben & Jerry’s), and conservative author and interment camp proponent Michelle Malkin, whose relation to Pittsburgh Penguin Evgeni is unclear, yet obvious. Jerry and Michelle were admitted under Oberlin’s “Get the two most opposite people ever as alumnuseses” initiative. They were however bested by little known Aldersson Broadus College who can claim both Yao Ming and Hooks from the Police Academy movies as alumni.

After realizing his English degree was worthless, Sperry would go on to research the brain at Harvard and the California Institute of Technology, where he would perform his most famous works. There is no record of him ever donning spandex and yelling obscenities on behalf of marble mouthed wrestlers, but if he had perhaps his wiki entry would have been longer.

Robert Sperry, before going in for an eyebrow wax

According to Wikipedia: Bobby “the Brain” Heenan grew up in Indianapolis and Chicago, with a family so unimportant they don’t even warrant mention in his bio. He started in the wrestling business at the age of 16, carrying wrestlers’ equipment and working concession stands. Tasks usually only reserved for the most qualified soccer moms and 10 year olds. He later became a “heel” manager, heel meaning “bad guy” in the wrestling-to-English dictionary.

He went on to form the “Heenan Family” stable of wrestlers, no doubt to make up for the lack of Wikipedia worthy family he had growing up. The “Heenan Family” would last a good 20 years featuring an ever changing group of wrestlers that included luminaries such as The Red Rooster, and The Brooklyn Brawler. He would later have to retire from managing due to a bad neck, and would last another decade as an announcer before throat cancer forced him to not have a throat and therefore not be able to speak.

Further Wiki reading shows that Sperry’s most famous experiments dealt with “split-brain” theory. Or the theory that the two separate hemispheres of the brain are almost totally separate entities, that each half of the brain has its own consciousness. Bobby Heenan went on to manage, among others, the Brainbusters, whose split-brain theory mainly consisted of them trying to literally split their opponent’s brains.

Bobby Heenan seen here with the Brain Busters, unsuccessfully attempting to hitch a ride somewhere

Sperry won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981. Bobby Heenan was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004. The only person who can claim both a Nobel Prize and Induction into the WWE Hall of Fame of course being Nikolai Volkov; who won the Nobel Peace prize for his world changing turn from “guy who sings the Soviet anthem before matches” to “guy who sings the American anthem before matches”

Sperry would die in 1994, partly due to Kuru which is an incurable degenerative brain disease. He acquired this disease whilst handing brains for his experiments. And as mentioned earlier “The Brain”, one of the best speakers in wrestling history, had to retire due to throat cancer. Irony is a cruel mistress; Cruel Mistress was also in the “Heenan Family” at one point if I’m not mistaken.

Anyway, on to the main point of this entry, who is more important? Important-ness will be determined by cutting and pasting their Wikipedia pages onto a Word document and doing a word count. Which is also how they determine who wins at the Golden Globes.

Roger Sperry:

Pages: 2

Words: 717

Characters: 4540

Footnotes: 2

References: 8

Bobby “The Brain” Heenan:

Pages: 7

Words: 2749

Characters: 16,615

Footnotes: 19

References: 0

Well, there you have it. All of Roger Sperry’s many years of tireless brain research; research that ultimately killed him, pales compared to the guy who managed King Kong Bundy.

In the eyes of the internet a Nobel Prize pales in comparison to leering at Nitro Girls.

Notice the absolute domination in number of footnotes, because of course it’s incredibly important that you know for sure that Andre the Giant would have to retire if he lost his match at the first Wrestlemania.

So in conclusion: go to hell Roger Sperry, if you’re not already there, the internet has decided you’re a second class citizen to a guy who hasn’t been on TV regularly in almost a decade. And really, who can disagree?

This has been Tale of the Wiki tape. I'll blog again with whatever random thing I feel like writing about. Join me again won’t us?