Mike Tenay Comments On Final Months Of Don West's Life

Mike Tenay has opened up about the final months of former TNA broadcast colleague Don West’s life, with the much loved commentator passing away from lymphoma in December.

Tenay originally broke the news of West’s death, and recently appeared on Wrestling Observer Radio to talk about his departed friend:

“Well thank you (for letting me come on the show to talk about Don West). You know, Don West, and everybody goes to this card, the larger than life personality. Don was the definition of that. A definition of larger than life personality and he had a heart to match. I think as you guys can see by the social media reaction, universally loved by everybody who worked with him and I think equally respected by those who didn’t work with him. We’ve seen by TV tributes from both the WWE, which I have to say was a very pleasant surprise, and by AEW. In the wrestling business, I think it’s just by the nature of the business, you make a lot of great acquaintances but very few great friends and that’s exactly what he was and I think our mutual friend, Craig Jenkins, that worked with us in TNA and IMPACT, I think he says it best, he always says, ‘We loved him like a brother,’” said Tenay.

Tenay continued, speaking of West’s final months:

“I think the biggest thing was I knew so many of Bobby’s [Heenan] stories backwards, forward and sideways that I knew once he got started down the road on a story, I could definitely tell where it was going. He also didn’t like to be dealt with in a way where if he’s telling you something on the phone and you’re on the other end and you’re just playing along and you’re going, ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh,’ he would know because he would throw in a question and he would know that if you’re not answering his question, you’re just playing along and humouring him and it bothered him a lot. But by the same token, by the time you said to him for the third time, ‘Damn, I’m just not getting it. Can you give it to me one more time?’ It had gotten real frustrating. Don [West], again, the same thing happened for the past few months of his life or the last few months of his life I guess. He was not able to really speak very well and it was in a similar fashion that maybe six months out, you could just see the decline and you would talk to him on the phone and there would be words that you might confuse with other words and then the last couple of months, he was not able to speak at all. So, you just try and just try and take whatever of the conversation is what you do… It’s a tough thing to do but what’s the other option?” Said Tenay.

H/T: POST Wrestling