Yeah my initial thought about Seth was “well if he says he didn’t do it it obviously never happened” (sarcasm)
I’m not saying it did happen, but him just saying it didn’t happen also doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Meltzer backing off is still the right play but no reason to think Seth was telling the truth either.
Agreed. Didn’t mean to imply in my post above that I think Seth is definitely telling the truth, but Meltzer did the right thing regardless. Dave wasn’t there, so even if he thinks his source is reliable, his choice is either to name his source… which he’s not doing if he wants to keep ANY of his sources… or to just take the L for now and assume the truth will come out eventually.
And if Seth is lying, I’d imagine he’s not making many friends in the locker room right now. Like 1995-97 Shawn Michaels without the once-in-a-generation level of talent.
I believe it because Dave issued a retraction. He has wrestlers bugging him all the time about his reporting (although not normally as high profile as Seth). My impression is he sticks to his reporting. He wouldn’t just cave because “Seth said so”.
He rarely issues a total retraction which means to me he confirmed Seths side of the story from more sources than his first one.
His source was apparently wrong, it happens. Things like this wouldn’t happen if WWE actually handled media like a real company instead of in an adversarial way.
I enjoy Dave’s writing but is hard to listen to on podcasts. He stumbles over his own words quite often. I love the newsletter and love going back to the older issues to see how accurate he was with things. It’s laughable how people get so pissed at his star ratings like his ratings are the gospel. Undertaker vs HBK getting only 4.75 stars for example. He didnt think it was 5 stars but why can’t you rate it 5 stars on your own ratings? Differing opinions are fun. And as morbid as it sounds I look forward to the newsletter when a huge star passes away. He always goes the extra mile to give a proper tribute.
This isn’t a small thing though.
It’s one thing to mis report small things like you heard someone got an offer from AEW or may be injured etc.
He essentially reported that Rollins addresses the entire locker room telling them to keep off social media and it wasn’t well received.
It would appear this never happened.
This is really a weird thing to misreport or make up and entire speech and how to was received etc don’t you think? It’s not a small thing
If you understood defamation laws then you’d realize there is no benefit for Meltzer to make things up. Maybe he was misled or given wrong or exaggerated information but to say he lied or just made it up out of thin air is incredibly stupid.
He was given bogus information.
The better question is why or who gave him bogus information. I am starting to get the feeling Seth is very disliked backstage and/or Seth is extremely close to management and can intimidate others into staying silent or backing him up (which is what my gut tells me happened here).
Seth: Guys, stay of social media
Dave: Seth said stay of social media
Seth: I never said that
Locker Room: (off of social media)
Or management gave a message to keep the dirty laundry in house and he backed it but not necessarily in some big speech.
Maybe he was given bad information on purpose to diminish his credibility after he reported on the SA stuff and WWE was not happy about that.
Either way, it really doesn’t matter. Anything being reported in dirt sheets is always to be taken with a grain of work salt involved.
I just like speculating and the conspiracy stuff is more fun
I could not have been more clear that I was citing an existing report that was out there and publicly available for everyone to see. I think that is a major distinction and is a common practice for a news outlet to cite a report from another news organization while adding they have not confirmed said news independently.
Trust me when I say, no one is harder on themselves than I am. I take this stuff exceptionally serious. There is no one doing this job at any major wrestling outlet that takes this lightly or doesn’t understand the ramifications of their reporting or weight they may carry among their listener/readership.
You’re the best in the world, John. And you didnt even need to go to Saudi Arabia to prove it.
In my youth I didn’t know who Meltzer was, I had a family friend who was a lower-card talent in WCW / WWF so I got a lot of my insider information from him.
I had to look him up when I came back to wrestling a few years back when the Bucks did a move called Meltzer Driver and that is how I learned about big Dave.
I don’t have a problem with him, he has a good view of the industry. His contacts seem solid. He will be wrong at times but let’s remember he reports on WWE, they change entire angles hours before the show so nowhere is “subject to change without notice” more true than in the WWE organization.
I listen to him for his match ratings mostly, he is bias sure but I feel it is more the style of wrestling over the company that books it. I just don’t like his ratings breaking but it is all in fun.
His news reports are fine, he will get some wrong and some right but he seems like a straightshooter.
I tend to get my industry news from John, since I found POST I have been happy with the coverage. In my experience corrections are posted immediately and POST is often cited on YT Wrestling content and while these content creators aren’t fact checkers it shows there is some credibility there. Meltzer is much in the same boat.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Conrad reads old observer text on his pods. Some of the stuff he said about sable was…not great.
What was he saying about her?
Lots of comments on fake boobs and using those to mask talent and whatnot. Between Sable and Goldust he was ruthless in the 90s. Wouldn’t fly at all today.
Yup. It probably didn’t raise any eyebrows in the 90s but it’s pretty weird to hear bc now he seems to be considered a legit journalist.
This is my favorite thing about the Meltzer-bashing community. It’s a well-known and long running joke (or fact) that Vince McMahon can be unpredictable and make drastic creative changes on the fly. But any time Meltzer says that “plans changed”, the cretins come out of the woodwork to call him a hack and a liar.
I’ll just say I only pay for podcasts from two sources. Post Wrestling and F4WO.
Bryan explained that it was more of a case when Dave rushed to report something, based on people who weren’t actually at the place but were adamant that they’ve heard that Seth spoke. A broken telephone situation, as we call it here. Even Bryan told him before they started recording, that his sources are not clear about Seth talking. But Dave told him it’s alright. Than he apologized publicly for his mistake. As he does every time when something like this happens. And it is the wrestling busyness, where everything changes every minute.
As for Seth - lately he is really focused on burning Dave, cause he is one of the most notable and critical journalists about the WWE product (I wonder why).
More on Seth - I am not sure which is worse - that he (had to) spoke, or the fact that he sat there like a little mouse and didn’t (the Carl Anderson tweet about leaders in the locker room). He is such a company guy douche with his comments lately, that I actually am starting to like Roman over him. So, he actually not speaking (nor Roman, for that matter) after this Saudi disaster… I can only look him with disgust for the noise he is making over this.