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Dave Meltzer

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For other people named David Meltzer, see David Meltzer (disambiguation).

Dave Meltzer
Meltzer in 2018
Meltzer in 2018
BornDavid Allen Meltzer
(1959-10-24) October 24, 1959 (age 64)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationAuthor, journalist, historian
Alma materSan Jose State
Period1971–present
Subject
Notable worksWrestling Observer Newsletter
Notable awardsMelby Award[1]
Children2
Website
f4wonline.com
Part of a series on
Professional wrestling
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David Allen Meltzer[2] (born October 24, 1959) is an American journalist who reports on professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. Since 1983, Meltzer has been the publisher and editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (WON), a dirtsheet primarily addressing professional wrestling. He has also written for the Oakland Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Yahoo! Sports, SI.com,[3] and The National Sports Daily. He has extensively covered mixed martial arts since UFC 1 in 1993 and also covers the sport for SB Nation. He has been called "the most accomplished reporter in sports journalism" by Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated.[4]

Early life

Meltzer was born in upstate New York to a Jewish family.[5] He later moved with his family to San Jose, California.

Meltzer earned a journalism degree from San Jose State University and started out as a sportswriter for the Wichita Falls Times Record News and the Turlock Journal. He demonstrated an interest in professional wrestling and a journalistic approach to it early in life. Meltzer wrote several wrestling-related publications that predate WON, dating back to 1971. The most notable of these was the California Wrestling Report, ca. 1973–1974, which reported on the still-extant National Wrestling Alliance territories operating out of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Wrestling Observer

Main article: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The beginnings of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter date back to 1980, when Meltzer began an annual poll amongst those with whom he corresponded regarding professional wrestling. According to Meltzer, he was just a fan at first. A short time later, he began maintaining a tape-trading list, and would occasionally send match results and news updates along with tape updates. Meltzer stated that he wanted to keep his friends in college "in the loop" for his tape trading and the happenings in the business, as the mainstream wrestling magazines catered to a somewhat younger demographic.[6]

Star rating system and impact

Main article: List of professional wrestling matches rated 5 or more stars by Dave Meltzer

Meltzer popularized the star rating system (devised by Jim Cornette and his childhood friend Norm M. "Weasel" Dooley),[7][8][9] which rates matches on a scale of zero to five stars (sometimes going into negative stars in the case of very bad matches) in a similar manner to that used by many movie critics.[5] Meltzer has also given ratings that have exceeded five stars. The first 6 and 6.5 star matches took place in 1981 (as rated by Dooley, not Meltzer).[10] The highest he has ever rated a match was seven stars, given to Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega for their match at Dominion 6.9 in Osaka-jo Hall in June 2018. Wrestlers such as Bret Hart have written how proud they were when their performances were praised in the WON.[11] Others, such as Cornette himself, PWInsider's Dave Scherer[12] and Seth Rollins[13] have criticized Meltzer's system.

Meltzer himself has stated that his star system is "the least important" work he undertakes and has said that wrestlers and fans place far more importance on the star ratings than he does.[14] Nevertheless, Meltzer's ratings are frequently are hot topic within the world of professional wrestling, and were so particularly in the late 2010s following the awarding of six stars to the Omega vs Okada match at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in 2017.[14]

Reputation

Meltzer's reputation is divisive; his work is generally praised amongst journalists, scholars and historians. In the professional wrestling business, he is considered more controversial, particularly by those targeted by his reporting or damaged by it.

In 2016 the Washington Post referred to Meltzer as "pro wrestling’s preeminent journalist" while in 2013 Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated called Meltzer "the most accomplished reporter in sports journalism" and stated "You could cover the Vatican or State Department and not do as good a job as Dave Meltzer does on wrestling".[4] R. Tyson Smith, a professor at University of Pennsylvania, cited Meltzer as "the foremost authority on professional wrestling in the United States" in his 2014 book exploring identity, masculinity, and the act of violence in professional wrestling,[15] while wrestling historian Pat Laprade has called WON the "Wall Street Journal of professional wrestling".[16]

Bret Hart recalled that during his career most of his colleagues were keen to be featured and praised by Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter,[4] and stated he was glad that WON served as a legitimate source of news within professional wrestling following the Montreal screwjob incident.[4] Industry veteran Terry Funk recalled in his 2013 autobiography being impressed by WON:

I immediately thought that this thing was going to take off. There would be no stopping it. Instead of talking about the matches as if they were real competitions, like the newsstand magazines had one, Dave Meltzer wrote about the business behind the scenes. It had news and results from all over, and was obviously written about someone who understood the business...I saw it as a thermometer of sorts, to see how different things were getting over in different places.

— Terry Funk, More Than Just Hardcore

Conversely, PWInsider writer Dave Scherer has criticized Meltzer's work. After a collaboration between them during the 90s, Scherer alleged that he gave him first-hand information, but then Meltzer published something different.[17] Former WWE wrestler John Bradshaw Layfield has alleged that WWE gave Meltzer false information, which Meltzer then published.[18] In August 2024, Alfred Konuwa, writing for Forbes, alleged that Meltzer had committed a number of notable mistakes in reporting over the course of that year.[19]

In May 2015, Meltzer reported that Destination America had decided to cancel Impact Wrestling by late September 2015.[20][21] Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) vehemently denied the reports, claiming that they "constitute[d] defamation" and that they were "seek[ing] all legal remedies available", but TNA was off Destination America by January 2016 and no legal matters ever arose.[22]

Awards and accomplishments

Bibliography

  • Tributes: Remembering Some of the World's Greatest Wrestlers (Winding Stair Press, 2001, Hardcover) ISBN 1-55366-085-4 ISBN 978-1553660859
  • Tributes II: Remembering More of the World's Greatest Wrestlers (Sports Publishing, 2004, Hardcover) ISBN 1-58261-817-8 ISBN 978-1582618173

References

  1. ^ a b Laprade, Patric (July 18, 2016). "Melby Award for Meltzer proper recognition for pioneering work". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Archived from the original on September 22, 2023. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  2. ^ Wrestling Observer Newsletter trademark Archived August 4, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Trademarkia, Accessed August 12, 2010
  3. ^ Observer, Dave Meltzer, Wrestling (September 27, 2021). "AEW's Battle With WWE Is Heating Up". Sports Illustrated. Archived from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved September 27, 2021.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b c d Rossen, Jake (May 15, 2013). "In World of Wrestling, Trying to Keep It Real". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 24, 2020. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
  5. ^ a b "Dean S. Planet's Celeb Interviews". Dean S. Planet's. Archived from the original on August 3, 2003. Retrieved July 11, 2007.
  6. ^ Benaka, Lee (1991). "The Lee Benaka Interviews – Dave Meltzer". Benaka, Lee. Death Valley Driver Video Review. Archived from the original on July 30, 2007. Retrieved July 11, 2007.
  7. ^ Cornette, Jim. "Stars in Their Eyes – FSM#138". JimCornette.com. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
  8. ^ Cornette, Jim. "Stars in Their Eyes". Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved November 8, 2021.
  9. ^ Bixenspan, David (June 16, 2017). "Rating Pro Wrestling's New "Best Match Ever" Is Way More Contentious Than It Needs To Be". Deadspin. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
  10. ^ @davemeltzerWON (March 24, 2019). "The first 6 star and 6 1/2 star..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  11. ^ Hart, Bret (2009). Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling. Grand Central Publishing. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-446-54528-0.
  12. ^ "Where Have the AEW Fans Gone, HHH Booking, Drew Mac is a Stud and More | PWInsider.com". www.pwinsider.com. Archived from the original on March 27, 2023. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
  13. ^ "Seth Rollins Praises Dave Meltzer, But Calls His Star-Ratings 'Silly'". itrwrestling.com. July 18, 2023. Archived from the original on November 18, 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  14. ^ a b Greene, Dan (August 15, 2018). "The History of Star Ratings, Wrestling Fans' Favorite Topic of Debate". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved September 25, 2024.
  15. ^ Smith, R. Tyson (2014). Fighting for Recognition: Identity, Masculinity, and the Act of Violence in Professional Wrestling. ISBN 0822357224.
  16. ^ Pat Laprade (2013). Mad Dogs, Midgets and Screw Jobs. ECW Press. ISBN 9781770410947.
  17. ^ "TONY KHAN'S COPOUT ON PUNK SHOWS WHO HE REALLY IS, WHY SOME FEEL THE WAY THAT THEY DO ABOUT CM PUNK, MELTZER AND ME AND MORE | PWInsider.com". www.pwinsider.com. Archived from the original on December 4, 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  18. ^ "JBL critica a los medios especializados y a Dave Meltzer". Archived from the original on March 5, 2023. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  19. ^ Konuwa, Alfred (August 19, 2024). "Dave Meltzer's 'Internal Memo' Gaffe Caps A Week Of Faulty Reporting". Forbes. Retrieved September 25, 2024.
  20. ^ "TNA Impact Wrestling reportedly cancelled by Destination America". prowrestling.net. Archived from the original on July 3, 2017. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
  21. ^ "Observer Exclusive: Destination America cancels TNA Impact Wrestling". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. May 21, 2015. Archived from the original on September 11, 2017. Retrieved May 22, 2015.
  22. ^ "TNA Statement on Cancellation Reports". Pro Wrestling Insider. Archived from the original on July 10, 2017. Retrieved May 22, 2015.
  23. ^ "Congratulation to Dave Meltzer, the 2017 James Melby Historian Award Winner". Cauliflower Alley Club. December 20, 2016. Archived from the original on July 26, 2018. Retrieved November 21, 2017.

Further reading

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