Wrestling Observer Flashbacks 1988

Well, 1988, as much as I love and care about you, it’s time our relationship came to an end again, just like James and Natalie on Big Brother last night.  So let’s all pour one out for 1988 before we move on.

That’s right, it is indeed time to wrap it up.

Oh shit, another 10-pager.  Who died this week?

Oh, never mind, turns out that Dave’s typewriter is in the shop again this time so it’s just a really font from his backup-backup typewriter that makes the newsletter look longer.  And is there a more 80s-specific career than running a typewriter repair shop?  GET A DAMN COMPUTER, 1988 DAVE!    You can predict the shift in the wrestling business years early but you can’t predict the shift to computers?

After last week’s rather dull news issue, we’ve got STUFF going ON.

And only a couple of issues left before it’s 1990 time!

Hey Scott, I don’t think you did the 5/30 or the 06/06 issues either. ’88’s not done with you yet!

Hey man, I don’t go to the street corner where your mom is working and tell her how to do HER job.

Wait, that sounded a bit mean.

Oh well, what are you gonna do?

We’re rapidly running out the clock on the 88 issues, with only a few left until we hit May 23 88 again, and then we go BACK TO THE FUTURE for January of 1990.

We might need Doc Brown and a chalkboard to keep track of it.

Happy Labor Day!  Let’s see if Vince or Crockett sabotage each other THIS week.  Unless there’s an even bigger promotional war brewing in Japan…

Your theme of the week:  “What goes around comes around”.  Sounds OMINOUS.  To the Observer!

By popular demand, the Wrestlemania IV vs. Clash of Champions issue!  Now expanded and with added stuff that I didn’t do the first time because I was still figuring out my voice for these and running jokes and such. 

‘Twas the week before Wrestlemania, and all through the WON

No big news items were stirring, not even a one!

The TV was tuned to TBS with great care,

Because soon Sting would wrestle Ric Flair.

(By the way, I got 90% through this issue and then realized I already had done this one as my second-ever Flashback months ago.  D’OH!  So here’s the much better version of that)

Well, after putting it off for a YEAR between season 6 and season 7 due to the incredibly brutal finale of the sixth, we finally binged through the last season of Sons of Anarchy this week and finished it off tonight.  Which took us a while, because every damn episode was 90 minutes long.  Regardless, I was still compelled to find out how Kurt Sutter would wrap it up, and as others had told me in equally vague terms, it went down pretty much like I figured it would.  Could have used an editor and less high school drama class symbolism (It’s a CROW!  It’s a HOMELESS LADY!  Jax has a shitload of white sneakers and now one pair isn’t so white!) but thankfully it didn’t go completely off the rails like Dexter or anything. Yeah, a lot of the final season made no sense if you stopped to actually think about the convoluted history of the characters, but that’s part of the charm of the show.  I was just thankful they didn’t make it to season 12, where Charming is a post-apocalyptic wasteland with killer robots that have levelled humanity back to the stone age, and Jax is the last human left, telling the alien overlords that THIS time, he promises no more killing in Charming, and you just have to trust him. Because it felt like we were going to end up there if they didn’t wrap it up soon. Anyway, I was satisfied with the ending and would recommend running the table on the show on Netflix.

Hoo boy, it’s yet another slow news week, resulting in yet another 8-pager instead of 10, so this should be relatively quick again. 

It’s time for DAVE MELTZER PREDICTS WRESTLEMANIA!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes on Facebook!  Now, back to 1988.

Well, we’ve once again hit another year in my life, and what better way to celebrate a birthday than by looking back at the Observer?  It’s like the gift that keeps on giving.

Uh oh, it’s a “slow news week” issue, so someone’s probably gonnna die by the end of the 10 pages.

Was shit real before?  Well, it’s about to become real.

THE WAR IS ON.

So last week Dave ended with a NEWSFLASH about the tournament at Wrestlemania, and this week he’s got the brackets!  But it’s not as we remember it…

HOW MUCH FOR THE PLASTIC SURGERY, BROTHER?  Well, let’s find out as we go back to the Main Event in February 1988.

Yeah, it’s a repost, live with it.

Happy Christmas! War is over!

Back to where we started!  For reference sake, here’s the very first Observer Flashback:  http://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2016/01/24/observer-flashback-jan-1988/

I mean, there’s not even any memes, dank or otherwise!  Plus I barely go into any detail on stuff.  Weird how fast these developed, since this was only about 8 months ago.

It’s ROYAL RUMBLE v. BUNKHOUSE STAMPEDE time!

Back to regular dating again.  I wonder if Dave just typed “January 15” by accident last week instead of “January 18”?  I MUST KNOW.

Not sure what’s up with Dave’s dating on this one.

Can we possibly top the epic story of Big Ben Bader and the Japanese riots from part 1? 

CAPSLOCKMAN very politely asked in the comments if we could skip ahead to 1996 instead of 1990, since the other guy is currently doing 1991 on Reddit, and it doesn’t really matter to me either way.  I will say that the Observer changes drastically from a content standpoint in 1991, so it’s more feature articles and TV reviews rather than the oodles and oodles of newsbites and super-opinionated Dave like it is here.  Whatever the will of the blog is, is fine by me.

For those who bought the archives (and those interested in doing so), I’ve copied the Flashbacks to date into a Word file and put it in the main directory on Onedrive, so you can peruse to your heart’s content.  As a reminder, I started in 1988 and did everything weekly from May 88 – December 89 already, and those are all available to read there and also via the big link at the top of the page up yonder. Just in case you want to catch up before we finish off 88 and jump into the 90s!

And we start this week with a god blessed miracle!