Do you trust Meltzer any more?

savemejebus

Just after seeing that someone is reporting that Dave Meltzer has said that “one of the very few people in WWE who hasn’t inquired to AEW.”

Personally I find that the concept that there are 'very few people' who haven't enquired hard to believe, whether due to liking their job security, knowing they wouldn't fit in, not wanting to lose the exposure they have etc.

If it is true that he said this then it's not the first shill-like comment that i've heard attributed to him when it comes to AEW (more demand than any wrestlemania springs to mind) so I think i'd take everything he says with an extra pinch of salt from now on. I'm wondering am I the only one though?

What do ye think? Do ye trust what he says these days?

Bounty Hunter

Meltzer is just a person. He speaks in hyperbole and he makes mistakes. I think he has a lot of contacts, knowledge and experience however and is still the person that a lot of "Wrestling journalism" is based around, with a lot of people just regurgitating what he says. He might be friendly with the people behind AEW and that might mean that we should take his opinion on them with a grain of salt but tbh you should take anyone's opinion that way as it is opinion not fact / news.

jaykhunter

Nopes

I'd take Meltzer's reporting to be factual (eg "here's the gate for this PPV") and his facts/figures to be as accurate as you can get in the wrestling business; but his opinions I more or less disregard, since he has a massive chubby for Japanese wrestling. Stuff like Omega & Jericho brawling at a press conference was like Rock / Hogan; that kind of wild hyperbole bigging up Japanese wrestling, it's pretty much a running gag.

ERG89

savemejebus wrote: »

Personally I find that the concept that there are 'very few people' who haven't enquired hard to believe, whether due to liking their job security, knowing they wouldn't fit in, not wanting to lose the exposure they have etc.

Would you not be a complete f**king idiot to not say to WWE you have options in contract negotiations now???
Even if you're bluffing you should at least put out feelers, when a company is giving 5 year deals to turkeys like Mojo Rawley they'd offer stupid money if one could confirm offers. I'm sure others would inquire for no other reason other than the schedule.

As far as Japan goes the standard of stuff like the New Japan Cup, Best of the Super Juniors and the G1 are so high it is praiseworthy. Much like on twitter those who say 'that's a 5* in the Tokyo Dome' must not actually watch Wrestle Kingdom shows to be using them as a punchline to a lazy joke.

savemejebus

Atari Jaguar

ERG89 wrote: »

Would you not be a complete f**king idiot to not say to WWE you have options in contract negotiations now???
Even if you're bluffing you should at least put out feelers, when a company is giving 5 year deals to turkeys like Mojo Rawley they'd offer stupid money if one could confirm offers. I'm sure others would inquire for no other reason other than the schedule.

Nobody questions the logic of getting more leverage in contract negotiations. However, I'd guess that the number of talent in wwe coming up to contract negotiation time does not tally with what Meltzer is supposed to have said about there only being 'very few' who haven't enquired.

I haven't had an issue with him giving false praise to matches too often, I would however be fairly cynical when dealing with unprovable comments about his friends business.

Agent Coulson

Using Meltzer has worked well for the midcard talent that are getting a nice bump in pay on 5 year deals offered to them by the WWE that will set most of them up for life.


Then there are those that are happy to use it to negotiate with other companies.


So whatever you want to say about Meltzer his writing is working for the benefit of talent in the long term.


I'd take his paid view over the paid view of Brother Love, Conrad and all the podcast gangs that make money out of fans for their opinions and insider knowledge that they sell themselves for having.

B.A._Baracus

Atari Jaguar

Al Snow said it best regarding Meltzer and that he is the greatest worker of all time and he has never taken a bump at the same time (it wasn't a compliement either)

Meltzer takes crap. He doesn't know what he is talking about. By that I mean he was never working for some promotion for years as a booker or anything. He is no different than a fan who reads some insider terms. Granted, credit is due the man has earned a great living from wrestling by taking no bumps. But it's all horse crap. People buying into this opinions as gospel.

5 star matches ... you can wipe your ass with his 5 star matches :pac:
We all have different opinions. I might vanilla ice cream and you might like chocolate ice cream. Who cares what people think. All that matters is did it sell... (from wwe's own perspective) the rest is all BS.

Like what Meltzer views as a good match is completely different to what vince and other key management in WWE think.

Jerichoholic

Nopes

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Al Snow said it best regarding Meltzer and that he is the greatest worker of all time and he has never taken a bump at the same time (it wasn't a compliement either)

Meltzer takes crap. He doesn't know what he is talking about. By that I mean he was never working for some promotion for years as a booker or anything. He is no different than a fan who reads some insider terms. Granted, credit is due the man has earned a great living from wrestling by taking no bumps. But it's all horse crap. People buying into this opinions as gospel.

5 star matches ... you can wipe your ass with his 5 star matches :pac:
We all have different opinions. I might vanilla ice cream and you might like chocolate ice cream. Who cares what people think. All that matters is did it sell... (from wwe's own perspective) the rest is all BS.

Like what Meltzer views as a good match is completely different to what vince and other key management in WWE think.

Absolute nonsense.

B.A._Baracus

Atari Jaguar

Jerichoholic wrote: »

Absolute nonsense.

How?
He's no different from you starting your own wrestling news website. How does his knowledge differ from yours? I? some random fan watching years?

Jerichoholic

Nopes

90% of actual wrestlers have subscribed to his newsletter for 40 years. He teaches Sports Business in a University. Vince has offered him deals to work with WWE at least 3 times. He's not a random fan. He's friends with some pretty impressive names. Rock, Flair, Bret etc. He was best friends with Brian Pillman.

A geek on wreddit is not that way.

Also you don't need to take an armdrag to tell if a match was good or not or to be allowed to criticize it. It's a performance art. Do you need to be an actor to be able to tell if Spice World is a good movie or not.

sky88

Atari Jaguar

Jerichoholic wrote: »

90% of actual wrestlers have subscribed to his newsletter for 40 years. He teaches Sports Business in a University. Vince has offered him deals to work with WWE at least 3 times. He's not a random fan. He's friends with some pretty impressive names. Rock, Flair, Bret etc. He was best friends with Brian Pillman.

A geek on wreddit is not that way.

Also you don't need to take an armdrag to tell if a match was good or not or to be allowed to criticize it. It's a performance art. Do you need to be an actor to be able to tell if Spice World is a good movie or not.

why does being friends with any of the wrestlers come into support of his work when its generally good for the wrestler as he wont criticize his friends eg flair

Jerichoholic

Nopes

His work is always good, but you would have to read it to know that.

B.A._Baracus

Atari Jaguar

Jerichoholic wrote: »

90% of actual wrestlers have subscribed to his newsletter for 40 years. He teaches Sports Business in a University. Vince has offered him deals to work with WWE at least 3 times. He's not a random fan. He's friends with some pretty impressive names. Rock, Flair, Bret etc. He was best friends with Brian Pillman.

A geek on wreddit is not that way.

Also you don't need to take an armdrag to tell if a match was good or not or to be allowed to criticize it. It's a performance art. Do you need to be an actor to be able to tell if Spice World is a good movie or not.

Its all balls dude.
If a wrestler is renegotiating his or her deal it doesn't come down to "oh how many stars did meltzer give?" - comes down to brass tax. They sold X amount of merch now worth X amount more etc.

It's just his opnion. As said above fair play to the chap for making as much as he did. But he just sells his opinion. I don't need to read about how much a match was good to enjoy it myself.

Jerichoholic

Nopes

He reports on business aspects very well and has trusted sources for news. 99% of the twitter scooperstars get all their news the Observer. You would also have to be blind not to be able to see that New Japan matches are of a higher quality than anywhere else.

If you don't read his stuff that's fine, but you shouldn't be condemning something you don't read or know anything about.

B.A._Baracus

Atari Jaguar

Jerichoholic wrote: »

He reports on business aspects very well and has trusted sources for news. 99% of the twitter scooperstars get all their news the Observer. You would also have to be blind not to be able to see that New Japan matches are of a higher quality than anywhere else.

If you don't read his stuff that's fine, but you shouldn't be condemning something you don't read or know anything about.

second time you tried to play the one-up card saying i dont read him :pac:
nice try. I do read him.

what card will jericholic play next... stay tuned. lol.

Jerichoholic

Nopes

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

second time you tried to play the one-up card saying i dont read him :pac:
nice try. I do read him.

what card will jericholic play next... stay tuned. lol.

I don't need to read about how much a match was good to enjoy it myself.

Where do you read his stuff?

Saying you don't trust him and all of his stuff is bollocks and he hasn't a clue, then you say you read him.

I'm calling bull**** on that.

B.A._Baracus

Atari Jaguar

Jerichoholic wrote: »

Where do you read his stuff?

Saying you don't trust him and all of his stuff is bollocks and he hasn't a clue, then you say you read him.

I'm calling bull**** on that.

you're like a deck of cards.

well seeing as you bloody love the man and feel the absolute need to defend him... i now pronouce your mrs jericho-holic-meltzer :pac:

but to be serious. i dont give two flying fu*ks what you think. I got my opinion. You got yours. You quoted me first. Take it... leave it... try to go on about how wrong I am? whatever you want dude.

Jerichoholic

Nopes

Who's better than Dave then, may I ask?

B.A._Baracus

Atari Jaguar

Jerichoholic wrote: »

Who's better than Dave then, may I ask?

your ma :pac:

Loughc

Atari Jaguar

Jerichoholic wrote: »

Who's better than Dave then, may I ask?

Canyon.

Jerichoholic

Nopes

What a great thread

B.A._Baracus

Atari Jaguar

Loughc wrote: »

Canyon.

Crap. Would have been a better joke :pac:

The White Wolf

Jerichoholic wrote: »

Who's better than Dave then, may I ask?

I do think Meltzer has been unfairly disparaged ever since social media has given a platform to countless rent-a-mouths desperate to discredit someone who has simply been peerless for decades. That's my two cents anyway on the subject.

Him and Alvarez are still the first opinions I seek out when something has happened.

jaykhunter

Nopes

Jerichoholic wrote: »

90% of actual wrestlers have subscribed to his newsletter for 40 years. He teaches Sports Business in a University. Vince has offered him deals to work with WWE at least 3 times. He's not a random fan.

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Its all balls dude.

The height of coherent rebuttals there BA. Well done.

Sirsok

I suscribe to the Fcuk Dave Meltzer club....

Thats cause the first ever podcast i listened to Something to wrestle

Agent Coulson

Brother Love Dave's biggest source back in the day.

B.A._Baracus

Atari Jaguar

jaykhunter wrote: »

The height of coherent rebuttals there BA. Well done.

Whats the alternative? I have my opinion & others have theirs. So we get back and fourth, back and fourth arguing our point and whats the end result? i still have my opinion he still has his.

So yes it's all balls :pac:

leggo

It’s not a simple issue.

Does he have sources and report a lot of accurate info? Yeah, clearly.

Does he also report absolute bollocks? Yes. I’ve known enough about stories I’ve seen him report on to be able to gauge how much he actually understands and doesn’t and it’s just right there that he reports whatever is said to him without double-sourcing or further research. These are core principles in any field of journalism and he’ll ignore them to get a good yarn out when necessary. That’s low standards.

Is he objective in his opinion, the backbone of any credible reviewer in any medium? No, clearly not, he favours NJPW, finds it painful to rate WWE when they deserve it and his reporting on AEW has shown he prioritises looking after his mates and protecting his sources over reporting the truth or asking the tough questions.

Do I trust the word of other wrestling journalists more? I do, the likes of David Bixenspan clearly take more pride in what they’re saying being truthful. But do they have his contacts? No.

So he’s likely the best we’ve got, but what that speaks for is a damning indictment of the standard of reporting in wrestling rather than him being a great journalist in his own right. Ariel Helwani, for example, runs rings around him for standards in a similar environment.

Jerichoholic

Nopes

Sirsok wrote: »

I suscribe to the Fcuk Dave Meltzer club....

Thats cause the first ever podcast i listened to Something to wrestle

Listening to a con man is not a good start.

Vince135792003

Nopes

When it comes to reviewing matches, it's just Meltzer's opinion. Sometimes I'd agree. Sometimes I'd disagree. I sometimes do feel he could be more open to others opinion. I was a print subscriber of the Observer for about 7 years before he went online. The amount of factual information and the sheer volume of it and analysis is incredible. You would regularly get 2 Observers a week and I could not keep up! His obituaries and historical pieces about wrestlers, incidents and wrestling territories are where Dave Meltzer shines. The Observer is overambitious (history, news, business analysis, obituaries, match reviews and gossip, especially when it first began). All done by 1 man for 30 years week after week (it may be slightly more or it may be less) is incredible and deserves respect. It's not a perfect publication but wrestling is far better off for its presence. I have listened to him for nearly 20 years at this stage and I've enjoyed it immensely. His enthusiasm, intelligence and thoroughness is undiminished. I do think he can be slow to admit an error and can come across overly confident/flippant on social media. When all is said and done though, his passion and knowledge of wrestling is infectious and helped turn a childhood interest for me into an adult 1. I think he's done that for many.
His influence as a commentator/reporter of wrestling may be overstated in 2019. Life moves on. However, he will be remembered as a pioneer. A pioneer wrestling needed.

sky88

Atari Jaguar

Jerichoholic wrote: »

Listening to a con man is not a good start.

But the con man is/was friends with impressive names like flair,piper, Austin, rock