Dave Meltzer stuff

[sek69]

Or, maybe his source was just wrong or had an ax to grind? I mean not everything has to have ulterior motives. I know that's not as interesting an option as secret double agent sources plotting to betray Big Dave, but it's probably closer to the truth. 

[Jmare007]

21 hours ago, sek69 said:

Or, maybe his source was just wrong or had an ax to grind? I mean not everything has to have ulterior motives. I know that's not as interesting an option as secret double agent sources plotting to betray Big Dave, but it's probably closer to the truth. 

I think the bigger point is trusting just once source and not confirming it with other people. Now, if Dave talked to 3-4 people and all said the same thing and then he still had to retract the report, of course there would be a bigger story that just one person with an ax to grind/being wrong.

[El-P]

The Omega interview was great. Sorry, but this guy is the best. Comes off smart, humble to a degree (not without a sense of confidence about being great), most of all very level headed, talking about how he's still learning how to be a star in a US wrestling TV format, his love for joshi puroresu and how he would spent lots of money in 1999 buying tapes (yeah ! I've been there !), the fact he and the Bucks are more interested at this point with creating new stars, how they are in long-term and therefore not worry about a ratings war, the whole Jim Cornette thing. Just terrific stuff.

[Matt D]

Mr. Wrestling II as Most Overrated Wrestler of 1980 feels like a conventional wisdom knowledge gap to me. 

[El-P]

The episode with Pat Laprade is a must-listen, on many levels.

[SirEdger]

Pat is indeed a great communicator and historian of the business. He was an executive producer on the Andre the Giant HBO doc and he's currently working on his biography to be released somewhere in 2020 or 2021, not sure. He also doesn't hold back when comes time to criticize the current product (especially since he's doing commentary on the Quebec weekly version for RAW) so you can't accuse him of being a shill or anything.

Which reminds me that I gotta listen to his podcast more often.

[sek69]

Wanted to include ThreadKiller's post from the AJPW Pillars thread here since it is very well thought out:

There was a time when if Dave Meltzer reported something, I automatically believed it for the most part and assumed it was true and factual.  I have lost some respect for him, and there are a couple of reasons.

Firstly, much of the time on Twitter he basically acts like a glorified troll.  He's rude a lot of the time and makes provocative statements for reasons I can't even guess.  I've seen Meltzer supporters actually refer to this as "Meltzer working his Twitter gimmick."  Even some of his defenders have questioned why he acts like this, and what he's trying to accomplish. I don't know what the hell he's doing on Twitter, but it sure isn't reporting. In his defense, he absolutely does get provoked and antagonized by fans of Vince Russo or supporters of some of Conrad Thompson's podcasts.  And now, even Cornette fans.  But just because people are baiting him it doesn't mean he has to respond. But he seems more than happy to sink to their level and that makes him hard to take seriously. I don't think people who want to be accepted as legitimate journalists should act like that, I don't care if "it's just Twitter."  If you make a living reporting facts and offering your editorial opinion, then I think you forfeit your right to compartmentalize your writing and assume people should think you're serious on your website and newsletter, but what you Tweet doesn't count.

Secondly, I am sorry but I do believe that his reporting techniques have been exposed over the past few years.  I am not saying that I agree with idiots like JBL or Bruce Prichard who claim that Meltzer makes stories up or invents lies to promote his newsletter.  I do not believe that Dave Meltzer has ever deliberately fabricated a story.  I don't think he has ever knowingly written something untrue. I think he believes what he reports, but I don't think he's anywhere near as infallible as I used to. When you're talking about the Conrad Thompson podcasts, you also can't lump them all together when it comes to their position on Dave Meltzer. On one end of the spectrum you have Bruce Prichard who is (and always has been) a lying carny and I don't believe a damn thing he says. On the other end, you have Jim Ross who frequently agrees with what Dave Meltzer reports and openly admits that he has talked with him in the past, and basically been one of Dave Meltzer's sources. Then you have Arn Anderson, who seems to have no axe to grind with Meltzer one way or the other. Let's throw out everything Bruce Prichard has ever said about Meltzer.  On their podcasts, both Jim Ross and Arn Anderson have been quoted something Meltzer reported and they've calmly and rationally stated that he was incorrect.  He got the story wrong. These are not guys who hate Meltzer, these are not guys who are trying to make him look bad. Both guys will freely admit when Meltzer is right about something, and even agree with his editorials and match reviews.

For example, one the episode of Arn's podcast that dealt with Arn's career ending injury and retirement, Conrad was using the Observer as the basis for his research, which he frequently does. Conrad was listing off the dates that Arn was off work and the supposed surgeries he had, when Arn stopped him and pointed out that one of the injuries that Meltzer reported had never happened, and he had no idea what Dave was talking about. I suppose it's possible that Meltzer was right and Arn is forgetting one of his own injuries, but I doubt it. But at the time, if I had read that story in the Observer I wouldn't have questioned it for a second. In my opinion, Dave Meltzer incorrectly reports things at times because he doesn't always bother to confirm his facts.

People love to blame the apparent end of the Dave Meltzer/Jim Cornette relationship on Cornette going insane over Meltzer's AEW fandom. And that is certainly part of it, but I don't think it is the whole story.  Jim Cornette has said that he considered Dave Meltzer a personal friend, but when Cornette quit the NWA over his infamous "fried chicken" joke Meltzer made that one of his major stories in the Observer, and that was fair.  It was news. Cornette had no issue with Meltzer reporting it, but the problem was that even though they were friends Meltzer never called Cornette to get his side of the story or even ask for a quote. How can you be friends with a person, report on something involving them but not bother to get their side of the story or check your facts?  Cornette has also confirmed that some of the things Meltzer has reported about the goings on behind the scenes in the NWA were factually incorrect...especially when it came to the nature of the financial end of Cornette's agreement with the NWA.  These are facts that Cornette would have been happy to share with Meltzer if Meltzer had actually bothered to ask him before reporting it in the Observer. (Especially since Cornette has since gone on to openly disclose the financial details of his agreement with the NWA on his podcast.)

The deal with Eric Bischoff and Dave Meltzer is a whole other situation.  Eric Bischoff absolutely does hate Dave Meltzer and will never let an opportunity pass to slag off Meltzer and the Observer.  Bischoff has been totally upfront about the fact that at one point he had a relationship with Meltzer, that Bischoff himself initiated. Bischoff has claimed that one of the main problems when he took over WCW was that Turner executives were reading the Observer and making management decisions based on what they were reading, which was leading guys like Gary Juster to leak info to Meltzer in order to further their own political agenda.  Bischoff openly admits that he hoped by working with Meltzer he'd be able to promote WCW in a positive light (and himself as well, I would assume) while at the same time stop the leaks. Bischoff claims that he wanted Meltzer to come to him directly before printing unflattering stories about WCW, so he could get Bischoff's side of the story. (I have no doubt that Bischoff was also hoping to exert some influence over Meltzer to get him to kill stories which made him and/or WCW look bad as well.) Either way, Bischoff claims that despite the fact that he made himself available to Meltzer, Meltzer continued to run stories about WCW without bothering to check with Bischoff and get his side of the story first.

You can like Eric Bischoff, or you can hate him.  He absolutely does have a problem with Dave Meltzer. But that doesn't change the fact that history has proven that a lot of the things Dave Meltzer reported about the inner workings of WCW were absolutely untrue. A lot of the facts Meltzer reported at the time about WCW were accepted as gospel at the time, and are still believed to this day. One glaring example is Dave Meltzer's claim that one of the the main reasons Eric Bischoff was able to turn a profit in WCW and get them out of the red, is because Hulk Hogan was not being paid by WCW so that money never came out of their budget.  Meltzer has claimed (and still does as far as I know) that Hulk Hogan had a separate contract with Turner Home Entertainment which wasn't part of the WCW operating budget.  Bischoff, Hogan and even some people who worked for Turner have since claimed that is absolutely not true...that if somebody worked for WCW their contract was part of the WCW budget...but that didn't stop Meltzer from reporting it.  And from arguing with anybody who claimed it wasn't true.  It's apparently true that after the merger, all major talents were signed to contracts with AOL/Time Warner that were separate from WCW, but that still doesn't mean the funds didn't come out of WCW's operating budget. I'm not going to bother to bring up stupid stuff like "Mabel being the third man in the NWO" and crap like that, but there have been many examples of Meltzer reporting stuff that happened behind the scenes in WCW - especially when it comes to reports about certain talents coming in, going out, or the details of contracts - which have since been proven to be wrong.  Bischoff claims (and I believe this) that guys like Terry Taylor and Kevin Sullivan would frequently tell Meltzer things that were either partially or totally untrue, and Meltzer would turn around and print it as a fact.

The book "The Death of WCW" by RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez was considered by many to be the source of information behind the collapse of WCW. I thought it was.  I own a copy of that book.  And Dave Meltzer's reporting was one of the main sources of information for that book (which isn't surprising when you consider Alvarez is one of the authors) and Meltzer even wrote the foreword.  When I read that book, I assumed that it was pretty much accurate.  The problem is...a lot of that book is speculation and a great deal of it is factually untrue.  And that has been proven.  That's why Bischoff is constantly promoting the book "Nitro - The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW" by Guy Evans. Trust me, that book does not always paint Eric Bischoff in a flattering light but at least Guy Evans bothered to speak to Bischoff and more importantly he talked to high ranking executives at Time Warner to get the complete story about the real death of WCW.

There are a lot of people who will believe what Dave Meltzer reports, or agree with his editorial opinion, just because it's Meltzer that said it. For as many people there are out there that disagree with everything he says and jump all over him when he reports things, there are an equal number of people who blindly believe everything he says.  Maybe it's unfair of me to expect the guy to not have an opinion. I can see that. But because he has long been considered the leading source of information when it comes to Professional Wrestling, when he says something people will listen to him and give his opinion a lot of weight.  So when he offers up an opinion about something stupid, I just find it annoying.  I find that his opinions and his editorializing seem to intermingle a lot of the time.  I've had disagreements with people about AEW, (not here at PWO, granted) who have turned around and quoted Meltzer.  That annoys me, because Meltzer doesn't always report just facts about AEW.  I don't think he's objective. He likes those guys, he's friends with a lot of them and he clearly has a bias when it comes to promoting them.  Conversely, I think when he doesn't like somebody, he can be equally as guilty of using his newsletter as a platform to bury them. He's allowed to have friends and he's allowed to have a bias (both positive and negative) but when your voice carries as much weight as his does, I think you should take some consideration when passing your opinion.

In the end, I really don't buy the argument that Dave Meltzer and his newsletter are popular, so that some how validates him or his opinion.  I'm sure he's more popular now than he ever has been. So what?  Jim Cornette has one of one of the most popular Pro Wrestling podcasts around right now, and his audience is growing every week.  That doesn't make his editorial opinions any more valid.  Fox News is the #1 news channel on cable, that doesn't make everything they report true or justify every opinion they express.  My main point was that I don't believe Dave Meltzer as much as I used to, and I know there are other people who feel the same.  I was speculating that maybe the fact that people are now questioning his factual validity was the motivation behind some of his more proactive editorializing, and I stand behind that.  I respect the reasoning of those who don't agree with my position on this issue, but it doesn't change my opinion.

[sek69]

My take, for what it matters, is that reporting on pro wrestling is probably the most difficult beat to work on for a journalist. You have to try to sort out what's true from people trying to bury others, make themselves look better, or just straight up lying carny assholes.  I think Dave's more than a little bit jaded as well after doing this for so long, and that will sometimes come out in his interactions with others where he comes off looking not that great. He also has a fairly dry sense of humor that can easily be missed if you aren't used to it. 

The biggest thing I've noticed is his inability to let even the tiniest detail go uncorrected. He'll derail a show he's doing to correct a minor mistake he told in a throwaway story he told weeks ago, often a point no one would possibly care about or even notice if he didn't mention it. It's the source of a lot of his Twitter antics as well, dude just has to correct any wrong information he comes across, and as anyone who's ever been on Twitter can verify, it's pretty much non stop there. 

Knowing that is the way his brain operates, it leads me to believe that for example Dave would never bother to ask Eric about WCW since it's clear he would not believe anything he said about it. He's stated several times that between having a poor memory and now with his podcast gimmick, Eric would not be a reliable source of information about anything. There's also been several times where he's sat on stories he knew to be true (and ended up coming out later) because he was not able to get more that one source to verify the info he was told.  That leads me to the other comparison mentioned.

Popular doesn't validate his opinion, sure, but using the Fox News comparison begs one to consider some context. I 100% believe Dave attempts to get every story completely right. Does that always happen? Of course not. There's no way anyone could achieve that considering the nature of the business being covered and it's innate reflex to hide/obscure truth/flat out lie.  Do I believe the attempt is made? I do. I don't necessarily believe Fox News for example is making that same attempt. 

On the other hand, I do think some people are looking too hard to see boogeymen when it comes to him. He's friends with the AEW guys, but I don't really see his overall opinion on their shows that much different than anyone else's I've seen. He was just as hard on them as anyone else during that period in December before Tony stepped in where the TV shows were a mess. No one batted an eye, but when he liked their PPV (as did everyone else), it's OMG BIASED MAN ON THE PAYROLL.  I feel like I sometimes come off as a Dave Defender, and I suppose I am to some degree. I just think a lot (not all, but a fairly decent amount) of people being critical are not always doing so in good faith. WWE fanatics consider anyone slightly critical as a biased hater, as if there was no way anyone could ever be critical of WWE. 

Dave would be well served to stop giving in to his OCD-like need to correct the trolls. Not only does it not make him look good, it just validates them to their peers and makes it seem like they had legit points to begin with. 

[Jmare007]

I think in the last couple of years it's been fairly established how Dave fails at fact checking his main sources. That's the kind of flaw that would be a pretty big deal with any top reporter. I feel Dave gets too much of a pass on this issue because there's a portion of the fanbase that blindly hates on him so there's always a "sure he made a mistake but it's not because he's on *insert promotion* paycheck" argument that can be had and that pushes away the real issue.

[sek69]

Is he failing at fact checking, or is he at the mercy of having sources in a carny business known to be full of liars? I  honestly think it's a little of column A, a little of column B. I get the impression once Dave validates a source on a couple of stories he tends to rubber stamp anything he gets after that point. 

[CarpetCrawler]

5 hours ago, sek69 said:

Is he failing at fact checking, or is he at the mercy of having sources in a carny business known to be full of liars? I  honestly think it's a little of column A, a little of column B. I get the impression once Dave validates a source on a couple of stories he tends to rubber stamp anything he gets after that point. 

This is the part that I feel like people don't understand.  It happens in the sports world a *lot*.  Your sources are going to lie to you sometimes.

 

16 hours ago, sek69 said:

On the other hand, I do think some people are looking too hard to see boogeymen when it comes to him. He's friends with the AEW guys, but I don't really see his overall opinion on their shows that much different than anyone else's I've seen. He was just as hard on them as anyone else during that period in December before Tony stepped in where the TV shows were a mess. No one batted an eye, but when he liked their PPV (as did everyone else), it's OMG BIASED MAN ON THE PAYROLL.  I feel like I sometimes come off as a Dave Defender, and I suppose I am to some degree. I just think a lot (not all, but a fairly decent amount) of people being critical are not always doing so in good faith. WWE fanatics consider anyone slightly critical as a biased hater, as if there was no way anyone could ever be critical of WWE. 

This is kind of my biggest sticking point.  I've made it no secret online and to wrestling buddies that I've been done with Dave for awhile now and have always thought he was kind of a huge factor in why the Smark Community was such a terrible thing in the early days of the internet.  But people like Bruce Prichard go so out of their way to slag on Dave (didn't Bruce try claiming Dave was going to the papers to rat out the WWF for blading on Saturday Night's Main Event before bix had to message Conrad and tell him to sit Bruce down and tell him to knock it off?) for things that are so over the top and their listenerbase, which we gotta be honest is more than just a vocal minority at this point, treat it as gospel, and part of me is like shit, I don't want to be lumped with that crowd now. 

As for the whole thing on how Dave-haters think he has a pro-AEW bias... I even went out of my way awhile back to listen to Dave recapping WWE shows and PPVs and he was way more generous with his like of matches and the product than anyone who has been lumped as pro-AEW and anti-WWE is over here.  In fact it's Bryan Alvarez that I would argue is the big anti-WWE guy over at F4W.  Dave's one of the more "honestly Bryan I really enjoyed it/it was a good match" folks in that group.

[sek69]

Bryan's been watching the Monday Night Wars shows for the retro shows with Vinny & Craig, which means he watches twice the WWE content most folks do. He's so done with their bullshit at at this point, he's way harsher on them. Dave is usually "it is what it is" when it comes to WWE and usually reserves his frustration for when they are being blatantly dishonest. 

[Dooley]

20 hours ago, sek69 said:

My take, for what it matters, is that reporting on pro wrestling is probably the most difficult beat to work on for a journalist. You have to try to sort out what's true from people trying to bury others, make themselves look better, or just straight up lying carny assholes. 

That's one of the more "wrestling bubble " things I've read in a while. You don't think that happens in any other section of journalism ? Every source is pushing an agenda from their point of view. 

WRT to Dave, he's sloppy as hell but has the advantage of being the only worthwhile fish in a pond small enough to be a puddle.

[sek69]

20 minutes ago, Dooley said:

That's one of the more "wrestling bubble " things I've read in a while. You don't think that happens in any other section of journalism ? Every source is pushing an agenda from their point of view. 

WRT to Dave, he's sloppy as hell but has the advantage of being the only worthwhile fish in a pond small enough to be a puddle.

 

Well yes, but pro wrestling is kind of above and beyond in terms of it being accepted that you're going  to be lied to and it's just "workin' da boyz". 

[MoS]

Meltzer definitely makes mistakes, but I don't blame him for getting pissed on Twitter at idiots accusing him of being on the AEW payroll and blindly hating him based on known bullshiters. To some extent, it is how the medium is. There is no space to make a nuanced post like Thread Killer's so snark and insults are the bulk of a majority of responses. He actually retweets a lot of cool historical stuff and talks about pro wrestling, so I enjoy him on Twitter. I think he is nuts for thinking the tag team match at Revolution is the greatest tag match of all time, but him talking about that also meant a bunch of fans watched Fantastics-Midnight Express - he actually found a dailymotion link to the match and posted it - so I don't mind it at all. Recently he also gave a brief rundown of the evolution of escape the cage match rules in various territories. If someone can tune out the standard Twitter toxic bullshit, there is some good stuff there.

It is clear that there is a style he loves and it's not a style that appeals to everyone. But, as mentioned above, he has been very hard on AEW on multiple occasions. Maybe it gets lost amongst the cacophony that is Alvarez ranting about everything. 

[Bix]

The people who accuse him off getting paid by AEW are dumb.

 

But.

 

He shouldn't be selling AEW tickets, much less doing it and then deflecting criticism thereof with a blatant lie (that they have done the same for WM for years) that doesn't do anything to make it less unethical in the first place.

[sek69]

Haven't they done that for years with WM though? They have their annual meet up and sell tickets to meet and greets and whatnot for everyone to go to?

[Jmare007]

On 3/10/2020 at 3:58 PM, sek69 said:

Is he failing at fact checking, or is he at the mercy of having sources in a carny business known to be full of liars? I  honestly think it's a little of column A, a little of column B. I get the impression once Dave validates a source on a couple of stories he tends to rubber stamp anything he gets after that point. 

Considering how sometimes the problem is him just trusting 1 source and not even bothering to get any other side, yes, the problem is fact checking. I've done my share of reporting and that's a huge no-no, and no matter what you are investigating, people will try to "work" you. I'm not saying Dave's job is easy, it's not, but he gets too much of a pass when he doesn't do basic reporting shit.

16 hours ago, sek69 said:

 

Well yes, but pro wrestling is kind of above and beyond in terms of it being accepted that you're going  to be lied to and it's just "workin' da boyz". 

Can't say I agree. Take football (real football, not NFL) for example. One of the biggest flaws that beat has is that journalists "are at the mercy" of every agent and club manager feeding them lies or misinformation so they can push their agenda. I can't speak for every country but I've seen people in big papers here in Chile do the laziest job on the planet and just go with whatever story the agent they trust feeds them. Then they make a headline that ends up being complete bullshit. I know transfer season is full of this kind of stuff and you basically don't have 1 Woj or Adam Shefter type of guy who gets shit right all the time. But again, from my experience, most of the time is just people not doing their job right.

And man, I can't even imagine what politics is. The little I've done in that field it's actually hilarious how full of shit people are and how they swear they are working you.

[CarpetCrawler]

7 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

Can't say I agree. Take football (real football, not NFL) for example. One of the biggest flaws that beat has is that journalists "are at the mercy" of every agent and club manager feeding them lies or misinformation so they can push their agenda.

Good NBA example of this is Chris Broussard. He used to be one of the top "source guys" in the NBA back in the early 2000s and then for one reason or another a certain NBA superstar didn't like him, which led to people who were friends with said superstar deciding they no longer liked Chris, and then he slowly started getting more and more bad information from tons of people he thought he could trust, with the peak of it being when he loudly boasted that Kawhi Leonard was staying in Toronto last Summer.  Especially now that Woj is considered the one NBA guy who gets every scoop correct, Broussard is the butt of jokes now.

[Bix]

On 3/11/2020 at 4:53 PM, sek69 said:

Haven't they done that for years with WM though? They have their annual meet up and sell tickets to meet and greets and whatnot for everyone to go to?

They've never sold tickets to WrestleMania proper. Smolek on their forum organizes a group buy. They've sold actual AEW PPV tickets.

[sek69]

So Dave mentioned on the show him and Garrett did (which is a must listen since they had a doctor on talking about actual disease info), that if we get to the point where there's nothing much to talk about with all the wrestling companies shutting down he'd focus on more historical stories in the Observer. 

[Jmare007]

Yeah, this was a great idea by Dave. He uploaded it for free on Youtube.

 

[SirEdger]

Dr. Patel also did a similar interview a few days earlier with the guys at POST Wrestling:

 

[Steve T]

I wanted to share this excellent quote from the June 15, 1998 Observer

 

Quote

Wolfpac did an interview and got a huge reaction as Detroit is the kind of city they should be over the biggest in

 

[cm funk]

Kevin Nash is from Detroit