Wrestling pundit blasted amid reports of wrestling group’s uncertain future
Dave Meltzer set a clock by the backlash he would receive, and when the latest issue of his Wrestling Observer Newsletter landed on Wednesday, the clock struck midnight.
Earlier in the day, Meltzer had telegraphed that something big was coming, and that he was prepared for the reaction he anticipated his story would receive.
He took to Twitter with the following, hours before the issue landed on the F4Wonline site.
Imagine waking up one morning and being able to set your watch to a massive epidemic of insanity during that day? Tick, tick, tick.
Meltzer’s feature story in this week’s Observer has TNA fans lashing back in a big way at the storied wrestling journalist after his report that Destination America has effectively cancelled the show effective this September, around the time when the new fall season of TV is slated to begin.
A torrent of criticism and denial trickled out over twitter Wednesday night among the wrestling group’s small but rabidly loyal fan base, along with claims of Meltzer’s long storied (and unsubstantiated) vendetta against TNA were behind the report.
TNA executive Bob Ryder weighed into the fray as week, with a tweet of his own, alluding to Meltzer being wrong.
“For almost 13 years some people have predicted we were about to go out of business. It’s no more true today than it was then. #StandUp”
Ryder’s latest tweet on this issue comes just days after an exchange between the talent acquisition and travel executive for TNA and Meltzer.
Meltzer challenged one vocal TNA fan, upset with Meltzer for his enti-TNA reports to ask Ryder about a favor Meltzer had done for TNA, and wondered publicly whether Ryder had the “guts” to let it be known.
Speculation at the time was that Meltzer had held back on some of the most detrimental reports about TNA to give executives time to either tell talent themselves, or to continue negotiations with network partners without the noise of concern from fans and talent that Impact did not have a home.
Despite publicly mentioning the existence of “favors” to Ryder, Meltzer has refused to comment further on what they were, or why they were done.
Ryder gave a scathing, dismissive reaction on Sunday to Meltzer’s challenge, telling Dave to “get over himself.”
This sort of reaction is also nothing new for Meltzer when it comes to TNA fans. Earlier in the month, TNA fansite TNAMECCA banned all reports by Meltzer from appearing on the site.
These are the same TNA fans who didn’t believe reports that Impact would be canceled off Spike TV, and was looking for a new home, right up until it was finally admitted by executives in the company.
And that tends to be the pattern in these situations. TNA Executives, including Dixie Carter at the top, are notoriously secretive, even disingenuous, when it comes to transparently communicating to their fans and talent the true state of the company.
Speculation is that many TNA fans believe Meltzer to be an unreliable source who consistently reports false rumor as fact with regard to their favorite company. Most often cited is a comment Meltzer had made years ago about TNA never appearing on Spike prior to Impact being brought onto the Spike schedule.
Meltzer has stood behind his most recent story, and has even pointed out the caveat that news of the cancelation had been announced prior to TNA’s recent move on Destination to Wednesday nights (still slated for June) and that things could have changed. However, he noted, that if things had changed, no one who had previously been informed of the cancelation had been told of that order being rescinded.
In response the the heated, derogatory tweets and responses directed toward him, Meltzer said the following, “People probably should read complete stories. Some stories in 140 words miss a ton of detail.”
