8 Things You Learn Reading A Wrestling Magazine From 1990

5. The WWF Authority Figure Sucked

One of the significant problems with wrestling today is the heel manager narrative. It is so far beyond played out, and it is so utterly bereft of originality, that you can't help but look for the remote whenever a McMahon walks out onto the TV. It turns out, though, that even a €˜neutral€™ authority figure can be a pain in the bum when the writing is lazy. And as you learn in this magazine, the apathy towards continuity that we associate with today€™s WWE, was alive and well in 1990€™s WWF as well. In 1990, both fans and writers for the magazine were becoming livid with the way that there was no consistency coming from €˜WWF President' Jack Tunney. The magazine lists a bunch of examples, but what was a particular bugbear was the fact that Tunney would not allow Ultimate Warrior and Hogan a rematch after Wrestlemania. The reason? Because he could not €˜in clear conscience allow these two men to batter each other beyond the point of exhaustion, past the threshold of pain, and at the expense of risking torturous injury€™. While that statement is already beyond stupid anyhow, what mainly infuriated the punters was that a few months later, Tunney completely contradicted himself in an interview with the Toronto Sun (a real newspaper!). In reference to the €˜damage€™ that the wrestler Earthquake was causing with a rampage through the WWF, Tunney said that €˜wrestlers know the risks before they enter the ring€the best way to silence the Quake is by dishing out the same kind of punishment€™. So basically he was saying one thing in kayfabe, and another in the real world and the result was that the fans weren't getting what they wanted. Where have we seen that recently?