Wrestling Observer Flashbacks 1990 — page 2

Apparently, steroids are bad.  This and other top stories in this week’s edition of “DUH” weekly!

It’s over halfway through the year and it’s time for Dave’s mid-year report card.

Must not be much going on this week.

Sweet Christmas, Luke Cage was pretty good.  Slow start, but it picked up by the end and it was a pretty fun ride.  But now I have another four months to wait until Iron Fist!

If only Brutus Beefcake had been indestructible…

It’s the Great American Bash review!  Plus a valuable life lesson for all you kids out there:  If Brutus Beefcake offers to go parasailing with you…

Although this one is dated after the Bash ‘90 PPV, the issue is written before.  So don’t be disappointed at the lack of a review here.

I must now face the eternal dilemma of sports fan who has lost their team in the playoffs:  Do you cheer for the bastards that eliminated them because they earned it, or do you cheer for whatever team opposes them out of spite?  I guess it would be cool for the Cubs to finally win after 100 years or whatever it’s been, but the Indians DID sweep out the Red Sox so that makes them kind of awesome too.

Oh wait, hockey’s back on.  What’s baseball?

You know, writing this a couple of hours before the Blue Jays finish their humiliating sweep out of the ALCS at the hands of Cleveland, I’ve been studying up on the stats and metrics that seem to rule baseball now.  Turns out that there’s a fascinating, but little known, statistic that secretly rules the game.  Turns out that “run scoring” is an incredibly important part of the game, and in fact the team that “scores more runs” ends up winning a staggering 100% of all games in baseball.  Maybe if the Jays “scored” more “runs”, instead of bitching about the strike zone or swinging at every pitch so hard that they screw into the ground like a Bugs Bunny cartoon character, they wouldn’t be done so early.

Hey, speaking of futility and driving a franchise into the ground, let’s check in with Ole Anderson again!

(Unfortunately the 6/25 issue with the Clash XI review is mostly unavailable, so we’re covering what news I’ve got and then skipping ahead one week)

Congratulations to Anthony LaGoy, who won a Macho Man plush for his daughter in the Bleacher Creatures giveaway!  Another entrant came close, but finished the letter by saying that Dora the Explorer was the best and thus blew it at the last minute.  Dora is the WORST.  But fear not, if you’d like to try a Bleacher Creature of your own (WWE or otherwise!) just head over to www.bleachercreatures.com and use promo code CREATURE20 for 20% off this week only!  Also, to those getting butt-hurt about “stealing” the Bleacher Creatures name from the Yankees, it’s your own damn fault for cheering for the Yankees.

Hey, Dave was on vacation to Japan for the past two weeks.  Wonder if anything happened to change the business while he was there?

The era of Ole Anderson begins, and Dave isn’t really a fan thus far…

It’s the Capital Combat issue!

This is actually an interesting time for me to be reviewing, because I had moved from Vancouver to Edmonton just before Royal Rumble 90, around Christmas time.  In Vancouver you couldn’t switch channels without hitting a syndicated Crockett show, but by 1990 WCW’s syndicated package was dropping off a lot of systems.  Not only that, but Edmonton (and today here in Saskatoon) is WAY up north, with no access to local American networks like the Bellingham ones.  Basically, at the end of 1989 I lost all access to WCW until Shaw Cable picked up TBS in the summer of 1991, at which point I had ALL OF THE WRESTLING again.  So 99% of the stuff going on in the TV shows in 1990 is totally new to me, as I was only able to follow through PWI Weekly, and bless the almighty Apter for putting out that fine publication.

It’s been one of those weeks, says Dave.  The good news is that the NWA picked a new booker!

The bad news?  Well, where do we start…?

Thank god, back to doing these on my own computer again, with Open Live Writer so I can actually format everything the way I want it.

And Dave has a “few humorous items” to start us out.  But no dank memes, sadly.

Fair warning, I’m doing this on a netbook in a hotel room during the downtime of my conference, so basically you get what you get and you don’t get upset.  I’m having to compose this within WordPress (ugh), which is my least favorite thing to do, so we’ll see how it goes.

It’s the fallout from the WWF/All Japan Wrestling Summit supershow!  Hopefully no more extended Flair shaggy dog stories this time.

After the buildup to Wrestlemania last week, Dave unleashes the STORY OF THE CENTURY and blows the lid off all kinds of shit.

It’s pretty crazy.

Yes, the rumors are true.  Ric Flair has a TWIN BROTHER.

It’s the second week of April, so you know what that means…WRESTLEMANIA.

And Dave…liked the show?

Congratulations to the Blue Jays for completing the choke and handing the AL East to the Red Sox!  Now they just need to cough up the wild card spot and finish off the season with class.

Not that I’m bitter.

But hey, on the bright side, Dave has once again embraced both uppercase and lowercase letters!  And we get one of the most Because WCW issues ever.

Good god, Dave is still CAPSLOCKMAN this week.  I don’t know where this came from, but hopefully it ends soon.

Next week I’m going to be away at a work conference so it’s doubtful I’ll be doing these much. I’ll try to do a few in advance on Sunday before I go and post-date them, but no promises.

OH HEY, DAVE IS TRYING SOMETHING NEW THIS ISSUE.  TRY TO GUESS WHAT IT IS.

I CAN THINK OF AT LEAST ONE PERSON HERE WHO WILL LOVE IT.  BUT IF I HAVE TO SUFFER, SO DO YOU.

More bad news for the NWA in the wake of Flair quitting as booker, and Dave GOES OFF.  Obviously he didn’t take it very well.

It’s time for WrestleWar 90!  And the Main Event III!

Oh, and a very bad year for WCW officially begins…