DragonKingKarl: May 29, 1986 Wrestling Observer Newsletter review

With the release of his new book DragonKingKarl’s 1986-1987 Pro Wrestling Omnibus available on Amazon, Karl Stern continues a deep dive into those two years to look at the stories between the stories.

To do that, Karl goes into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter from May 29, 1986, issue where Dave Meltzer started by stating that there isn’t “any big news this week” which allows us to look at a lot of stuff that doesn’t get regularly discussed.

Buddy Rose and Doug Somers won the AWA World Tag Team titles from Curt Hennig and Scott Hall, “Cowboy” Bob Orton was arrested, UWF was running a hot angle with Bill Watts, Eddie Gilbert, and Korsita Korchenko, and the big powerhouse team of The Blade Runners (the future Ultimate Warrior and Sting) were changing companies… sort of.

This week is a fun deep dive back into 1986 pro wrestling history.

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Bob Orton thinks Randy Orton’s doctors told him to stop wrestling

Bob Orton believes doctors have told his son to stop wrestling. 

Randy Orton hasn’t wrestled since RK-Bro dropped the Raw tag titles to The Usos on the May 20, 2022 SmackDown nearly one year ago. He underwent fusion surgery on his lower back in November and there is no timetable for his potential return. 

Bill Apter asked Bob Orton recently if he had an update on Randy’s condition. 

“He’s training so we’ll see what happens,” Bob Orton responded. “I don’t know if he feels like going back. If he feels like he’s ready to go back, I think he might.

Then again, he’s pretty well taken care of. I don’t think he needs to and I think the doctors have told him not to. But Randy is going to do what Randy is going to do, he always does.”

There had been some speculation Orton would be in Los Angeles for WrestleMania weekend. However, our own Dave Meltzer wrote in the 4/2 Daily Update that WWE wanted it known Orton was not ready to return. 

Meltzer wrote: 

Regarding Randy Orton, on Friday we were told by WWE and actually asked to put out that he was not ready to return for a while due to his recovery from injuries and were told they wanted that out with the idea people shouldn’t get their hopes up for an appearance. 

Orton is believed to have been working through the injury for months by the time he stopped wrestling last May. The injury is said to have gotten progressively worse during that time.