Dave Meltzer stuff

[Boss Rock]

He's an excellent historian on wrestling but has always had his stylistic preferences. And being the only major wrestling journalist in the world, that inevitably shaped a lot of folks' and wrestlers' opinions on what good wrestling is. 

[ButchReedMark]

Would Bill Apter count as a major wrestling journalist? Worked as it all was.

[TheDuke]

I am not really interested in his news items or his match reviews. However I do have his Tributes book and it is awesome.

[NintendoLogic]

Dave really is sui generis. I can't think of any other field where someone is simultaneously the preeminent journalist, historian, and critic.

[GSR]

Just now, King of Debt said:

Dave Meltzer understands a reasonable amount of professional wrestling. The rest, he will never get, and arguably will never try to.

I wonder what will happen re: wrestling journalism when he inevitably puts the pen down, though

I have wondered how long he'll keep going for.  He's sixty this year, is he just going to keep working until he drops?

[CarpetCrawler]

2 hours ago, GSR said:

I have wondered how long he'll keep going for.  He's sixty this year, is he just going to keep working until he drops?

There was an interview from a few years ago where he insinuated that's what would happen, he said something along the lines of not stopping because he still feels completely fine and has no interest in slowing down.

[FMKK]

20 hours ago, King of Debt said:

Dave Meltzer understands a reasonable amount of professional wrestling. The rest, he will never get, and arguably will never try to.

I wonder what will happen re: wrestling journalism when he inevitably puts the pen down, though

The main thing would be format. I think you'd get various people doing reports and reviews as we see now but the newsletter format might disappear with Dave.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I just saw Mick Jagger give an energetic 2 hour performance at 75 years old, three months after heart valve surgery. I think Dave has at least 15 good years left in him if he wants. I don't think he's going away anytime soon. 

[War is Raw]

On 8/4/2019 at 8:18 PM, ButchReedMark said:

Would Bill Apter count as a major wrestling journalist? Worked as it all was.

Yes, he was recognized with the James C. Melby Award for wrestling journalists and historians. What I find amazing is how underrated Apter is now on all the forums I frequent. His influence was paramount on shaping views and promoting workers, and he had one of the early famous websites in 1997- 1Wrestling. Yes, he was the most respected "outsider". But he has always been active and conducts interviews on his podcast and YT channel, but for some reason Meltzer is mentioned 1 million times more and seen as relevant/an authority. He's treated like MAD Magazine, with people only having memories of his 1980s PWI family of mags, but he has a larger body of work all over the net and other mags.

The best part? He's a warm, sensitive human being who loves wrestling and the workers. His worst sin was working us as kids and promoting wrestlers who he liked or paid him to be on the cover or whatever with money, access, or a chance to be on TV. It sounds a lot more insidious than it really was. It's rasslin'. I leaned heavily on his work before the net and frankly WON's typeset and price were inferior. Invaluable.

[Coffey]

Going back to Simon Gotch, that dude has just became so... boring. I don't think he was ever brought up when talking about good workers or anything but he at least used to stand out a little bit with the Vaudevillain stuff. Once he shaved off the mustache, he had nothing left. And that's coming from someone that LOVES Cradle Piledrivers. He's not a great promo or worker & feels like the least interesting member of CONTRA. So putting all those things together, I'm sure Dave has not had a lot of great things to say about him in the past, so he probably holds a grudge over something that we have all long since forgotten.

 

[El-P]

31 minutes ago, Coffey said:

Going back to Simon Gotch, that dude has just became so... boring. I don't think he was ever brought up when talking about good workers or anything but he at least used to stand out a little bit with the Vaudevillain stuff. Once he shaved off the mustache, he had nothing left

Word. He was fun as Tom Lawlor seconds acting like a tough guy. He has totally sucked in the latest Contra matches (and looking worse than Josef Samael takes some will to suck, really), not to mention his now flabby looking body. Poor work, dull look, boring promos. He has become a total waste of time.

[Dale Wolfe]

Gotch has had it in for meltzer since he got his head kicked in by sin cara a couple of years ago. Dave reported it as completely one-sided, gotch maintained he got his digs in, and the resentment kept growing. 

I'm almost ashamed that I know this to be honest but it's the truth. 

[CarpetCrawler]

6 minutes ago, Dale Wolfe said:

Gotch has had it in for meltzer since he got his head kicked in by sin cara a couple of years ago. Dave reported it as completely one-sided, gotch maintained he got his digs in, and the resentment kept growing. 

I'm almost ashamed that I know this to be honest but it's the truth. 

Holy crap I completely forgot about that entire catering fight.  That would explain all of this honestly.

[NintendoLogic]

Gotch's only contribution of note to the business was that "Simon Gotch buries Enzo Amore" clip that ended up in the recommended videos feed of seemingly everyone who ever watched anything wrestling-related on Youtube.

[El-P]

19 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Gotch's only contribution of note to the business was that "Simon Gotch buries Enzo Amore" clip that ended up in the recommended videos feed of seemingly everyone who ever watched anything wrestling-related on Youtube.

If we're being honest, well yes.

[Kadaveri]

I need to know how that video has hacked YouTube's algorithm. I even had a friend who doesn't even watch wrestling say they saw that video.

[NotJayTabb]

Gotch is also very thin skinned, a vanity-searching blocker on Twitter. I'm blocked for mentioning - without tagging him - that I'd watched a show on IWTV where he was on the poster, but not on the actual show. You'd think being one of the few people to own a Vaudevillians t-shirt would earn me a reprieval 

[sek69]

Worst people on wrestling Twitter*: vanity searchers or people who tag-snitch in conversations trying to rope someone famous in to an argument?

 

 

 

(*obviously the racists and whatnot are the real worst)

[CarpetCrawler]

2 hours ago, sek69 said:

Worst people on wrestling Twitter*: vanity searchers or people who tag-snitch in conversations trying to rope someone famous in to an argument?

 

 

 

(*obviously the racists and whatnot are the real worst)

People do that with Dave by tagging Conrad for some reason and it's some of the most cringeworthy stuff possible.

[Bix]

On 8/7/2019 at 7:08 PM, War is Raw said:

Yes, he was recognized with the James C. Melby Award for wrestling journalists and historians. What I find amazing is how underrated Apter is now on all the forums I frequent. His influence was paramount on shaping views and promoting workers, and he had one of the early famous websites in 1997- 1Wrestling. Yes, he was the most respected "outsider". But he has always been active and conducts interviews on his podcast and YT channel, but for some reason Meltzer is mentioned 1 million times more and seen as relevant/an authority. He's treated like MAD Magazine, with people only having memories of his 1980s PWI family of mags, but he has a larger body of work all over the net and other mags.

The best part? He's a warm, sensitive human being who loves wrestling and the workers. His worst sin was working us as kids and promoting wrestlers who he liked or paid him to be on the cover or whatever with money, access, or a chance to be on TV. It sounds a lot more insidious than it really was. It's rasslin'. I leaned heavily on his work before the net and frankly WON's typeset and price were inferior. Invaluable.

Bill wasn't part of 1Wrestling at launch or even for the first several years. He's also the first to say he had very little editorial oversight of the magazines.

[Jmare007]

 

The fuck???

[NintendoLogic]

For those who are completely lost, start here.

I have no clue what any of this has to do with Matt LeBlanc.

[FMKK]

I've literally never seen anyone cheer in a movie theatre. Except maybe for the opening theme and Han Solo appearing in Force Awakens. But that was a midnight screening on opening night so it was a different atmosphere.

[sek69]

Somehow Dave mentioning that Roman's cameo in the Hobbs and Shaw movie got no recognizable reaction ended up with UK people trying to educate him on the proper etiquette of British Cinema.

*shrugs* Twitter, man.

[El-P]

8 hours ago, FMKK said:

I've literally never seen anyone cheer in a movie theatre.

Me neither

Then again, the move-going culture in Europe (not to mention France) is probably insanely different from the US.

(that being said, I did go "oh ! Jeff Jarrett !" in my mind when he popped up at the beginning of Spring Breakers, which is one of the most bizarre cameo you could think of)