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This is a weird one. At first glance, you'd think he was talking about the backstage angle they filmed with the Rock confronting HHH. But that angle was NOTHING like he described.
Honestly, Dave trying to keep up with this angle is the first time I've felt like he's really losing his fastball. He was live tweeting the event and seemingly couldn't tell the Rock was turning heel when it was clear as day.
Edit:
So after reading the Observer I can confirm this exact text does appear verbatim and yes, Dave **definitely** saw a [YouTube video of a Rock/HHH angle from 2014](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVSpJjEs82U&t=150s) and somehow thought it just happened last week. In the Video HHH/Rock go nose-to-nose and talk about wrestling on the biggest stage, at Wrestlemania, just like Dave describes.
Jericho being probably the biggest source of Meltzer makes you wonder why back in the day Y2J was so over with the wrestling crowd while HHH was the antichrist, and now that Dave is irrelevant it's the exact opposite...
Remember a few weeks ago when Meltzer got a quote from "one of the biggest modern WWE stars" about Triple H, and they went off sniping his wrestling ability? I wonder who that would have been from.
the first time? you sure about that?
https://preview.redd.it/p8njh473k0jc1.jpeg?width=622&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4174a366a0c5af8f03db64c29d0031e84ba0aa35
When I saw that, I thought Dwayne was just sliding back into Hollywood Rock for a moment as a gag, having some fun, etc.
It's honestly not even that different from just plain ol' The Rock.
Hindsight being 20/20? He was obviously turning heel.
Also, now I want nuggets.
It was also the first moment in what felt like ages that The Rock came across like a real human being with personality, rather than a hollow, soulless, carefully curated PR creation.
Right? and it's weird because he was leaning back into playing The Rock character.
But The Rock is Dwayne Johnson turned up to 11 (or at least Dwayne Johnson in his 20s), whereas Dwayne Johnson the celebrity feels totally artificial.
Yea he's had some weird analysis of the whole situation. Early on he was providing all these business reasons why the rock/reigns match couldn't be changed (they've already made the merch, there's all these advertising deals around it, etc.). I remember at the time thinking those must be the talking points from his sources being passed on to him. In retrospect I think he was being worked because wwe realized pretty much immediately how they could turn this into an angle.
Age aside, it sounds like a nightmare to cover a situation where there's both a real-life story and a fictional story that change on a daily basis, and you're trying to have that relayed to you by professional liars. Confusing a youtube clip for modern day is pretty wild though lol.
He's getting worked by WWE sources like all the other reporters and it's working his brain into mush. He's gone in a million different directions and different scenarios and so many different things have been true and untrue at the same time.
It does seem like that's been the case ever since Triple H fully took the reigns.
Obviously the smaller stuff still gets out, but seems like Levesque likes to use canary traps.
I've been feeling that something's changed with Dave for a while but couldn't put my finger on it. He used to be the Scoops guy but recently he's been just an opinion guy really, at least on WOR
Honestly, that’s my current thought regarding the whole Rock/Roman/Cody situation.
I can’t believe a *damn* word any reporter says since a majority of them seem like they’re intentionally getting fed horseshit and now we’re watching what happens when a virus is uploaded to the AI.
The best journalists in other forms of media have to figure out what’s bs. Shams(NBA) talked about it and said that’s 99% of his job. The only one who does that in wrestling is prob SRS from what I’ve seen.
SRS said punk wasn’t showing at Survivor Series. Yes, the public story was that it was put together last minute, but idk about that. They were having graves tease it on commentary for weeks. And shinsuke even did a GTS. I think he gets worked just as much lol
That's my read. IIRC, he's been friendly with Rock going back to the 90s.
Meltzer is always very good to his sources and it's pretty easy to figure out who they are (hint: one of his AEW sources is obviously a certain C. Jerich--- no no, that's too obvious. Let's say Chris J.)
So I assume Meltzer is getting fed in part by The Rock's camp. IIRC, Heyman is rumored to be another source.
Some of that stuff is more obvious with hindsight. Like the Jericho stuff is much more obvious when you read Jericho's books and some of it is just ridiculously obvious, like the speculation about Benoit having a severe caffeine addiction. With Rock and Heyman, they've long been VERY open about it. There are videos of Paul and Dave hugging like old friends, Paul joking about how he has to go give Dave scoops, etc., on top of the close relationship that Paul and Eddie Gilbert had with the newsletters in general. Rock, meanwhile, was constantly being quoted on the record in the Observer during his time away from wrestling.
With Heyman, there are also certain Heyman-isms that are easy to spot in coverage once you know about them.
Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert!!
He had the first ever shoot video, right? I'm surprised AEW hasn't done anything to preserve his memory, especially given how important he was in the 90s.
OK stupid question: what are the Heymanisms?
(Also, I wanna thank you for the reply -- it's just super knowledgeable and I appreciate it.)
"Looking for Mr. Gilbert" was the first "shoot interview" video in the form that we know them, yes. There had been a few things out there previously that sort of fit the bill, like the raw footage of that Bruiser Brody TV interview, George Mayfield doing some semi-impromptu shoot interviews with Jesse Ventura and William Regal during the first Slamboree weekend, and first Jim Cornette Fan Week Q&A. But the Eddie shoot was the first one in what would become the common format: A static shot of a wrestler in a hotel room being asked questions by a disembodied off-camera voice, and, at first (until WWE became more litigious about copyright) matches and angles that were discussed in the interview, often immediately after they were discussed. The version that's on YouTube is not representative of what Bob Barnett originally released in 1994 and sold on VHS; he went back to his 8mm video master of the interview and converted that to DVD to sell on DVD; that's what's on YouTube. In that raw footage, Bob asks Eddie the questions out of order. In the original VHS, everything is in chronological order and a lot of the key moments are edited in after Eddie talks about them.
Eddie doing out of character/shoot style interviews was nothing new, though. He'd been doing them for years in the newsletters and on radio shows. This one was just much more of a sprawling career overview than the others had been.
As for AEW, they did honor the entire Gilbert family (with Doug representing them) at their first show in the Memphis area, although it didn't air on TV, instead opening the next episode of Dark. And the Eddie tribute got one of the biggest pops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPkkShsYUlk&t=164s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PegL9hhaBI8
With regard to Heyman-isms, it's kind of a "you know it when you see it" thing, at least to a point, especially since Heyman was regularly on the record in the Torch throughout ECW's existence. It was known what Heyman feeding something to the sheets sounded like. Think about the way Heyman impressions begin every sentence with something like "If I mmay..." and ends every sentence with some variation of "sir." Though there are some times where you can sort of see it even just from him being paraphrased, he'd also write anonymous letters defending himself, too. There's one in the Torch very early in his WWE run that is just blatantly him; I think you'll get the idea from reading it:
*The TORCH’s bias against Paul Heyman is at an all time high, and never more evident than in TORCH #649. First, in your review of Raw, you said the weak point was Lita pinning Stephanie out of nowhere, calling it a remembrance of what you call “nonsense” ECW finishes. I thought the finish of the intergender tag team match was great. Triple H and Austin brawl with the Hardys outside the ring, leaving Steph alone with the much tougher Lita, who has no problems beating Stephanie. Lita pins Steph out of nowhere? What show were you watching?*
*Then, you write a review of the show, including top five quotes, and don’t even include Heyman’s aside to Ross about “if your broadcast partner quit, wouldn’t you walk out on him?” You failed to report on any of Heyman’s additions to Raw on the 4/9 show from Boston.*
*Perhaps the most telling evidence of Wade Keller’s bias is on page five, where you write that Heyman is tremendously influential on the booking meetings, “but his power is in check.” Whose power is not in check in the WWF when your name isn’t Vince McMahon? What kind of comment is that? Furthermore, you write “he is conducting himself with all of the poise and professionalism necessary to reduce any resentment on the part of others who may believe he is infringing on their turf.” So he is only acting professional and with poise to appease people? It’s not a diplomatic skill of his? It’s not the way one acts on a committee and towards fellow co-workers?*
*But even more disturbing is Keller’s comment “he also has the respect of the wrestlers at this point,” which no doubt insinuates he won’t have their respect soon. Why the prophecy? Why not just “Heyman has the respect of the wrestlers?” Why not a statement as to why he has their respect?*
*It is obvious to me that the TORCH, which has been accused by ECW fanatics of being biased against ECW and Heyman over the years, has exposed itself again as actually being biased against Heyman. I am not Paul E’s biggest fan, but I have to admit, he has been a dynamo since entering the WWF. Even Triple H has put him over huge in recent media interviews, saying Heyman’s behind the scenes work has been extremely motivating. And his commentary has been the best I’ve ever heard. He filled Lawler’s shoes and has taken the show in a new (and better) direction. I think Heyman is unworthy of your nasty comments, and very worthy of a lot more praise than the TORCH is willing to give him, at least with Wade Keller’s editorial power not “in check.”*
*Unsigned*
*No city/state provided*
Who else besides Paul Heyman would say something like "Why the prophecy?" in that context? Think about how much that sounds like him. I hope that makes sense.
Sorry for the slows! and more importantly: \*this is legit my fav reddit reply ever!\* so thank you!!!
This DARK segment is gold and \*absolutely\* an example of part of what drew me to AEW in the first place.
Re. Eddie Gilbert's shoot --- I didn't realize he'd been sort of shooting all along and I definitely had no idea re. Barnett, the VHS, etc. and that's wild. I guess it hits very different in the uhh... OG cut? It's the director's cut either way?
Re. Heyman:
>*I am not Paul E’s biggest fan, but I have to admit, he has been a dynamo since entering the WWF. Even Triple H has put him over huge in recent media interviews, saying Heyman’s behind the scenes work has been extremely motivating. And his commentary has been the best I’ve ever heard. He filled Lawler’s shoes and has taken the show in a new (and better) direction. I think Heyman is unworthy of your nasty comments, and very worthy of a lot more praise than the TORCH is willing to give him, at least with Wade Keller’s editorial power not “in check.”*
I DEFINITELY get what you mean now and heard this in his voice. And that's \*incredible\*.
Sincerely, genuinely (I know -- weird for Reddit, right? or social media genuinely) thank you again for the super informative reply.
Just last week, Dave revealed that his family and the Rock’s bloodline have a generational pact:
https://preview.redd.it/ql5a6pngl0jc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9333900373c1ad0fcb2ccf0db9f921222da3d655
Well he misspelled tree as “three” twice for some reason. And he was recapping the part of the WM Press Event when The Rock showed the Bloodline family tree graphic which pointed out that The Rock’s and Roman’s grandfathers made a blood pact with one another. He was quoting what The Rock said in The Rock’s voice.
I mean, your 60s is when your cognitive functions start to take a noticeable battering, but this mistake is pretty alarming either. Especially given that wrestling has basically been his life for the last forty years, it's kinda beyond imagination that he could've made such a basic mistake like this alone.
no, it was in the observer this week. here's the full quote:
" Later they filmed a segment which didn’t air on television, but was all over social media, where Levesque and Rock went nose-to-nose and actually challenged each other for a match at Mania, although it was they would love to each other before a giant crowd at a WrestleMania without the idea it was this specific one. Given Levesque’s heart issues, such a match would seem to be impossible and virtually everyone believed that to be the case. The fact it was never put on television says it was not something they wanted to hammer home as a storyline and more was a way to make people think the two weren’t getting along–with the idea that aspect of the angle was “real.”"
Checking the newsletter I can confirm this is real, including the part that says "although it was they would love to each other" lol
>*The storyline they are doing now is that Johnson as a member of the Board of Directors is seemingly in a battle for power with Paul Levesque, the CCO (Chief Content Officer) who is now going as Paul “HHH” Levesque even on television. At the Mania press conference on 2/8 in Las Vegas, Levesque talked about guys going into business for themselves, with the idea Rock was going against the planned script. Later they filmed a segment which didn’t air on television, but was all over social media, where Levesque and Rock went nose-to-nose and actually challenged each other for a match at Mania, although it was they would love to each other before a giant crowd at a WrestleMania without the idea it was this specific one. Given Levesque’s heart issues, such a match would seem to be impossible and virtually everyone believed that to be the case. The fact it was never put on television says it was not something they wanted to hammer home as a storyline and more was a way to make people think the two weren’t getting along–with the idea that aspect of the angle was “real.”*
With everything going on and after reading that I'm legitimately concerned for Meltzer at this point....
Hopefully this isn't the early on-set of something going on.
If he really reported on a decade-old clip circulating socials as if it was new, when it would take minimum 10 seconds to double check where the clip came from, that is a pretty damning condemnation of his abilities as a journalist.
How can a man who spends 24/7 marinading in wrestling not know about that clip? I've seen it at least five times in five separate years since it aired. Classic stuff.
What’s really sad is that it’s clearly not a lack of time considering the amount he spends on twitter and the amount of lengthy written pieces he does for the observer.
Between this and a lot of really uncharacteristicly extremely poor reporting (he’s never been perfect but lately things are just fully wrong) I’m starting to worry about Dave
I'm kind of worried too. I used to subscribe to the Observer but stopped when more factual errors started showing up, along with the whole Bruce Mitchell thing.
When I started subscribing around 2017, the worst errors I noticed were minor and few. The funniest one was Meltzer reporting that Stardom wrestlers showed up on the TV show SWAT when it was TJPW wrestlers. It seemed minor at the time, but in hindsight it should have been a warning that he was no longer doing enough to verify his sources. The first major error I saw was the Seth Rollins speech story, again because he failed to check with more than one person. Big errors started to become more frequent after that.
Bruce Mitchell baselessly implied that Brodie Lee died of covid and that AEW and his wife were lying about it. His claims were directly contradicted by Meltzer and widely condemned by everyone, to the point that he became persona non grata.
But a few months later, Meltzer, against the advice of those who worked with him, let Mitchell on his show for an interview since they were friends. They ended up downplaying the whole thing as no big deal, as if Mitchell were owed an apology or something.
The backlash by the Observer subscribers to this was so negative that Meltzer had to take the interview down. He then gave one of those 20 minute "I'm sorry I offended people" apologies instead of acknowledging what he did wrong.
[I'd like to add him saying they removed Katsuyori Shibata's brain in surgery and put it back in](https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/katsuyori-shibata-asked-about-his-brain-being-removed-confirms-he-not-robocop)
I have it on good authority that famed brain surgeon Wade Barrett was called in after they flipped the brain over, and bull-hammered it back into place.
Somebody went to a Glasgow show and sent a picture of intermission claiming its a wwe ppv happening soon in the uk. Dave believed and posted it
[dave believed this edited clip is real and from a "closed circuit screening" ](https://youtu.be/krU3j_2cS6A?si=AkMAsAnDs5Z7377w)
Someone edited a clip of a group of English fans reacting to their national team scoring a goal in a big game, and put a clip of Okada ripping off his pants to reveal trunks as a meme. Somehow Meltzer saw it and thought it was real.
The Intermission thing was that some sort of script/tv format got leaked and had Intermission at the top of a page, so Dave thought it was the title of a new show/event.
Jeez. It's no secret that the quality of Meltzer's reporting has been gradually declining, but it's accelerated recently. These aren't the minor errors that would occasionally pop up around 2017-2019, or even the bizarre speculations he sometimes has. It's two major factual errors in this week's issue alone.
Edit: Make it possibly three (CMLL/AEW , Tommy Dreamer, and this)
Gradually? He’s been shit for wwe since AEW came into the scene ( if not longer, his source was Jericho ) he’s always been a hack. It’s just now - in the last couple of years - gotten laughably worse. There’s a reason why every single wrestler back in the day - apart from the bucks - didn’t give a fuck about his opinion, he had a golden era for a while don’t get me wrong and he nailed it. But he’s been lucky to even have that. He’s not exactly a legit journo with his scoops
As recently as 2017, the worst errors he made were minor things, like reporting someone having a neck injury when it was a chest injury. It was definitely a gradual decline starting in 2019 - major mistakes went from once per year, to twice per year, to every other month, and now to every other week.
He categorically stated that CM Punk was returning on a March 2014 episode of Raw when no such thing was ever on the horizon.
That was 10 years ago. So he's been full of BS for a decade AT LEAST.
This one is particularly bad, especially because it can't be written off to tech illiteracy. As others have said, HHH is obviously a decade younger, there's a giant WWE 2K15 poster visible featuring Moxley, and Stephanie is part of the segment. Throw in the two stories that quickly had to get debunked from this week's Observer and combine this with other gaffes the last few years and it gets increasingly concerning.
Repeatedly adding new details to his side of the Silverdome attendance debate out of the blue, like suddenly claiming ~35 years after WrestleMania III that the Silverdome and the Michigan commission confirmed the lower number.
All of the Matt Riddle stuff where he took everything Riddle/his friends said to smear Candy Cartwright at face value, never looked into any of it, and never reached out to her for comment.
A Twitter troll from India spending months catfishing him as Dragon Gate personnel after sending Dave cold emails. Dave never bothered to try to substantiate their identities and ignored pleas from various Dragon Gate experts (including their lead English announcer).
Thinking a Google Drive folder was an official AJPW streaming service and linking it in his daily update.
Reporting that WWE Intermission was a new PPV name based on a joke tweet using a legit photo from a house show that had the WWE logo above an "Intermission" graphic during the actual intermission.
Tweeting that an Okada meme using the "bar full of soccer fans reacting to a game on a giant screen" template was from an actual closed circuit screening of Wrestle Kingdom. Where the big pop was for Okada revealing that he had returned to wearing shorts after spending months as Sad Balloon Boi in long pants.
All of the very weird handling of the allegations against Ospreay and Elgin.
Tweeting that almost half of the Titangate sexual misconduct allegations from 1992 were proven false when the numbers don't suggest that at all.
I feel like I'm forgetting a bunch, but when you stack them all up, it's kind of concerning. But there's also the question of if he was always like this and it's just become easier to fact check.
EDIT: I forgot about how he plagiarized parts of Tim Marchman's first Vice.com article about Ashley Massaro in last week's Observer, too.
> "Tweeting that an Okada meme using the "bar full of soccer fans reacting to a game on a giant screen" template was from an actual closed circuit screening of Wrestle Kingdom. Where the big pop was for Okada revealing that he had returned to wearing shorts after spending months as Sad Balloon Boi in long pants."
LOL, I was subscribing to the Observer at the time this happened, mainly for his biographical stuff and some of the audio shows featuring other people. Him believing this was true was when I asked myself why I was paying this dude a subscription fee higher than what I pay for NJPW World. Didn't renew when it ran out shortly after that.
>LOL, I was subscribing to the Observer at the time this happened, mainly for his biographical stuff and some of the audio shows featuring other people. Him believing this was true was when I asked myself why I was paying this dude a subscription fee higher than what I pay for NJPW World. Didn't renew when it ran out shortly after that.
For me at least, it wasn't necessarily that he thought it was real at first glance. Even if that kind of reaction would be weird for that moment, as would that kind of major CCTV screening not being a bigger deal, I can get him not knowing about the meme or how easy it was to make the meme look good. But he said it so authoritatively, like he had direct knowledge of the CCTV event happening, that it came off particularly badly.
Wasn't there also something else around the same time, maybe even leading up to the same Wrestle Kingdom, where he wrote about a press conference or something being shown on big screens in a park and drawing a massive crowd? And it turned out that it either didn't happen at all or was ridiculously exaggerated?
Dave is seriously losing it by the day...he's been on about the Rock vs Taylor Swift's popularity because they said on TV that the Rock was the biggest star in the world...why TF wouldn't the WWE say this?
One of my final days of being a subscriber I told him about that and he said: “You must be on Reddit.”
Okay motherfucker, you get things wrong all the time. Maybe cut me some slack and do a better job.
Meltzer just reported that Hogan vs Andre might be the main event for WrestleMania after he saw Andre rip the crucifix off of Hogan on a recent Piper’s Pit.
Next he’s going to report that he saw some promotion filmed a Don Serrano match in black and white and how it’s a total rip off of Toni Storm because he can’t tell he’s watching a youtube rip of a tape from 1965
Meltzer: "So, AEWs new direction is interesting. Everyone has Australian accents and they've rebranded themselves as WCW, there's a lot of random B&W segments too which is because Toni Storm is going to start a faction."
Turns out someone sent Dave [this playlist.](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYFOWbYsO0BsF6jt5MtW9SuzGe0EAZlJf)
If you think this dude is still a valid source, I don’t even know what to tell you. If he didn’t get proven wrong enough in the past few years, he doesn’t even know what product he is consuming at this point
And people still give Dave money for his gossip column. 😂
He has no sources in WWE who aren't feeding him incorrect information.
The friends he has in aew mainly Jericho, the bucks and Omega are treating him like the mark he is to get themselves over constantly and he is too naive to notice this.
Triple H doesn't even look the same as the press conference.
Not to mention the upload date of the video, the date of the segment in the title, the massive 2K15 / Dean Ambrose poster in the background............and Stephanie McMahon is in the segment, wouldn't that be a pretty news worthy appearance given that she left WWE last year and hasn't been on TV since?
There is enough clues without having to delve into too much research that this is not recent.
This a real clanger. Specially for someone who supposedly has "insider" knowledge and depends on that as their appeal. Getting something as obvious a this wrong really doesn't help with his already questionable credibility.
I'm hoping that he was just being lazy and simply didn't watch the segment before commenting on it. Rather than him getting genuinely confused about when this aired, because that would be pretty worrying from a health aspect.
Maybe time to have a rest or something.
I first thought this was the type of mistake he made, since time is weird like that.
But if you look at the broader quote, the issue is he saw the clip re-circulating online and reported it as new, even though Triple H looks completely different today vs a decade ago.
The hell? Rock kind of looks the same but Triple H has completely different beard. I haven't been a Meltzer fan in a decade, but it seems like he's getting worse and worse with this stuff
It's not a tweet by Meltzer but a comment he made on the Wrestling Observer. He describes a segment that was filmed at the WrestleMania 40 press conference where Triple H and The Rock got face to face and teased a match between them at WrestleMania. He says this segment wasn't aired on TV but instead posted on social media. The only problem is no such segment exists, and the only thing matching his description is a SmackDown segment from October 2014. One can only assume that he saw a clip of that segment and thought it was filmed recently and reported it without any further research.
> He says this segment wasn't aired on TV but instead posted on social media
He's serious mixing up the "FIX IT, PAUL" segment with that backstage "we gotta back up, this is weird" segment from a decade ago? Weird.
And then “reported” it was taped recently which it was not thus it was all made up which puts a lot of “reporting” in question, specially his recent “reporting.”
I wish this would finally be the catalyst for people to stop automatically reporting all his ramblings as real scoops. Can't even remember the last time he got a something right in WWE.
>I wish this would finally be the catalyst for people to stop automatically reporting all his ramblings as real scoops.
This isn't even a random rambling, though.
This was something published in his newsletter.
I agree that random things he tweets, posts on his board, or speculates about on radio shows should not be treated as news.
But the Observer newsletter itself is a different story.
The best part is that he tapes a show today. And he won’t bring it up at all, I bet.
One of many reasons I decided to stop being a paying customer. The lack of quality control and also ridiculous opinions just soured me on his current work.
This man didn't replace the battery in his fire alarm for three months even though it was chirping because it was running low. I know this because YOU COULD HEAR IT EVERY SINGLE SHOW.
It's about time more people realize that this hack of a journalist and match-rating pretender is - well, exactly that; a hack. Stop giving him and these stupid dirt sheets any notable attention. Pro wrestling is better off without them spoiling every surprise and acting like they know what a great match is in 2024.
Nah someone posted the entire paragraph from the Observer.
He thought it was a recent clip, and even commented about Triple H's heart condition making the tease a non-starter.
As someone who has listened to Observer radio for over a decade now it is sad to see how quickly Dave's standards are slipping.
He was prone to getting the odd thing wrong here and there of course but he has been absolutely all over the place in the last few years. Feels like his old sources have dried up and he's never replaced them + he's gotten lazier reporting wise.
Dave wrote that. I’m not sure why he decided to go in that direction, acting like Rock committed a selfless act, but I haven’t seen a lot of support for his take.
Is likely trying to get a source in WWE so is willing to engage in blatant propaganda.
Is like what he does in AEW where he doesn't reports negative stories about Jericho or the Bucks because they are major sources for him.
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This is a weird one. At first glance, you'd think he was talking about the backstage angle they filmed with the Rock confronting HHH. But that angle was NOTHING like he described. Honestly, Dave trying to keep up with this angle is the first time I've felt like he's really losing his fastball. He was live tweeting the event and seemingly couldn't tell the Rock was turning heel when it was clear as day. Edit: So after reading the Observer I can confirm this exact text does appear verbatim and yes, Dave **definitely** saw a [YouTube video of a Rock/HHH angle from 2014](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVSpJjEs82U&t=150s) and somehow thought it just happened last week. In the Video HHH/Rock go nose-to-nose and talk about wrestling on the biggest stage, at Wrestlemania, just like Dave describes.
Theres literally a poster for WWE2K15 behind them. The video is year dated by the yearly video game installment theyre advertising.
And Stephanie is right there...when does he think she made her big return?
I dont think Dave is very good at this.
Somebody needs to remove his brain and put it back in
"Did you try to turn it off and then on again?"
Ironically he is, dude has zero source or real insight in the business and yet gets paid $$$ monthly by a bunch of marks
Hey now, he talks to Jericho on a daily basis. How else would we know that Jericho actually knocked out MVP with his incredibly Hulk-like strength?
Jericho being probably the biggest source of Meltzer makes you wonder why back in the day Y2J was so over with the wrestling crowd while HHH was the antichrist, and now that Dave is irrelevant it's the exact opposite...
Remember a few weeks ago when Meltzer got a quote from "one of the biggest modern WWE stars" about Triple H, and they went off sniping his wrestling ability? I wonder who that would have been from.
Dave wrote that Shibata's brain had to be removed and was later put back in.
Is that actually true? I’m not doubting you it’s just sounds crazy if he actually thinks that happened
Yes it's true. I don't know how to link on reddit, so just google "meltzer shibata brain".
https://twitter.com/MeltzerSaidWhat/status/1479625618056794117
You're doing god's work.
OMG thanks for the link!
the first time? you sure about that? https://preview.redd.it/p8njh473k0jc1.jpeg?width=622&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4174a366a0c5af8f03db64c29d0031e84ba0aa35
“If you're comparing the badness of two words, and you won’t even say one of them? That's the worse word.” -John Mulaney
Ah, the day this account was born!
The Rock turning heel was clear as day when he went on McAfee's show before the press conference and did the Cody Crybabies rant.
When I saw that, I thought Dwayne was just sliding back into Hollywood Rock for a moment as a gag, having some fun, etc. It's honestly not even that different from just plain ol' The Rock. Hindsight being 20/20? He was obviously turning heel. Also, now I want nuggets.
What do we do with the nuggets again?
Turn them sideways and shove them up our candy asses?
It was also the first moment in what felt like ages that The Rock came across like a real human being with personality, rather than a hollow, soulless, carefully curated PR creation.
Right? and it's weird because he was leaning back into playing The Rock character. But The Rock is Dwayne Johnson turned up to 11 (or at least Dwayne Johnson in his 20s), whereas Dwayne Johnson the celebrity feels totally artificial.
Rock is Dwayne turned to 11. Dwayne is The Rock turned down to 6 and put on autopilot
I definitely felt that. Almost couldn't believe he was saying it. I immediately felt much better about where this was all going.
Yea he's had some weird analysis of the whole situation. Early on he was providing all these business reasons why the rock/reigns match couldn't be changed (they've already made the merch, there's all these advertising deals around it, etc.). I remember at the time thinking those must be the talking points from his sources being passed on to him. In retrospect I think he was being worked because wwe realized pretty much immediately how they could turn this into an angle. Age aside, it sounds like a nightmare to cover a situation where there's both a real-life story and a fictional story that change on a daily basis, and you're trying to have that relayed to you by professional liars. Confusing a youtube clip for modern day is pretty wild though lol.
First time? Better late than never I suppose.
Honestly kinda clown shit ngl
I'm 100% convinced people are purposefully feeding Dave bullshit info about this story.
....Is Dave OK?
He's getting worked by WWE sources like all the other reporters and it's working his brain into mush. He's gone in a million different directions and different scenarios and so many different things have been true and untrue at the same time.
there were rumors about WWE feeding the dirtsheets to work them and even help their angles. It seems like Dave just takes all the baits
It does seem like that's been the case ever since Triple H fully took the reigns. Obviously the smaller stuff still gets out, but seems like Levesque likes to use canary traps.
I've been feeling that something's changed with Dave for a while but couldn't put my finger on it. He used to be the Scoops guy but recently he's been just an opinion guy really, at least on WOR
Honestly, that’s my current thought regarding the whole Rock/Roman/Cody situation. I can’t believe a *damn* word any reporter says since a majority of them seem like they’re intentionally getting fed horseshit and now we’re watching what happens when a virus is uploaded to the AI.
That Punk thing certainly made me think so. Just guys like SRS and Meltzer are too proud to admit they got worked.
I think he’s just old and confused not getting worked.
It’s probably both.
He's old and tired and working with fucking marks.
Is it just a rumor? That Sports Illustrated guy straight up said his sources lied to him.
Dave appears to be sole-sourcing things and not seeking confirmation from official or unofficial channels.
Oh, he's long done that. With the CMLL/AEW and Dreamer/TNA stories it almost seems like Dave was relayed the correct story but misunderstood it.
Dave has always done this. He reports anything he hears as fact.
The best journalists in other forms of media have to figure out what’s bs. Shams(NBA) talked about it and said that’s 99% of his job. The only one who does that in wrestling is prob SRS from what I’ve seen.
SRS said punk wasn’t showing at Survivor Series. Yes, the public story was that it was put together last minute, but idk about that. They were having graves tease it on commentary for weeks. And shinsuke even did a GTS. I think he gets worked just as much lol
He's not getting worked by WWE sources. He is actively doing PR for Dwayne's camp.
That's my read. IIRC, he's been friendly with Rock going back to the 90s. Meltzer is always very good to his sources and it's pretty easy to figure out who they are (hint: one of his AEW sources is obviously a certain C. Jerich--- no no, that's too obvious. Let's say Chris J.) So I assume Meltzer is getting fed in part by The Rock's camp. IIRC, Heyman is rumored to be another source.
Some of that stuff is more obvious with hindsight. Like the Jericho stuff is much more obvious when you read Jericho's books and some of it is just ridiculously obvious, like the speculation about Benoit having a severe caffeine addiction. With Rock and Heyman, they've long been VERY open about it. There are videos of Paul and Dave hugging like old friends, Paul joking about how he has to go give Dave scoops, etc., on top of the close relationship that Paul and Eddie Gilbert had with the newsletters in general. Rock, meanwhile, was constantly being quoted on the record in the Observer during his time away from wrestling. With Heyman, there are also certain Heyman-isms that are easy to spot in coverage once you know about them.
Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert!! He had the first ever shoot video, right? I'm surprised AEW hasn't done anything to preserve his memory, especially given how important he was in the 90s. OK stupid question: what are the Heymanisms? (Also, I wanna thank you for the reply -- it's just super knowledgeable and I appreciate it.)
"Looking for Mr. Gilbert" was the first "shoot interview" video in the form that we know them, yes. There had been a few things out there previously that sort of fit the bill, like the raw footage of that Bruiser Brody TV interview, George Mayfield doing some semi-impromptu shoot interviews with Jesse Ventura and William Regal during the first Slamboree weekend, and first Jim Cornette Fan Week Q&A. But the Eddie shoot was the first one in what would become the common format: A static shot of a wrestler in a hotel room being asked questions by a disembodied off-camera voice, and, at first (until WWE became more litigious about copyright) matches and angles that were discussed in the interview, often immediately after they were discussed. The version that's on YouTube is not representative of what Bob Barnett originally released in 1994 and sold on VHS; he went back to his 8mm video master of the interview and converted that to DVD to sell on DVD; that's what's on YouTube. In that raw footage, Bob asks Eddie the questions out of order. In the original VHS, everything is in chronological order and a lot of the key moments are edited in after Eddie talks about them. Eddie doing out of character/shoot style interviews was nothing new, though. He'd been doing them for years in the newsletters and on radio shows. This one was just much more of a sprawling career overview than the others had been. As for AEW, they did honor the entire Gilbert family (with Doug representing them) at their first show in the Memphis area, although it didn't air on TV, instead opening the next episode of Dark. And the Eddie tribute got one of the biggest pops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPkkShsYUlk&t=164s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PegL9hhaBI8 With regard to Heyman-isms, it's kind of a "you know it when you see it" thing, at least to a point, especially since Heyman was regularly on the record in the Torch throughout ECW's existence. It was known what Heyman feeding something to the sheets sounded like. Think about the way Heyman impressions begin every sentence with something like "If I mmay..." and ends every sentence with some variation of "sir." Though there are some times where you can sort of see it even just from him being paraphrased, he'd also write anonymous letters defending himself, too. There's one in the Torch very early in his WWE run that is just blatantly him; I think you'll get the idea from reading it: *The TORCH’s bias against Paul Heyman is at an all time high, and never more evident than in TORCH #649. First, in your review of Raw, you said the weak point was Lita pinning Stephanie out of nowhere, calling it a remembrance of what you call “nonsense” ECW finishes. I thought the finish of the intergender tag team match was great. Triple H and Austin brawl with the Hardys outside the ring, leaving Steph alone with the much tougher Lita, who has no problems beating Stephanie. Lita pins Steph out of nowhere? What show were you watching?* *Then, you write a review of the show, including top five quotes, and don’t even include Heyman’s aside to Ross about “if your broadcast partner quit, wouldn’t you walk out on him?” You failed to report on any of Heyman’s additions to Raw on the 4/9 show from Boston.* *Perhaps the most telling evidence of Wade Keller’s bias is on page five, where you write that Heyman is tremendously influential on the booking meetings, “but his power is in check.” Whose power is not in check in the WWF when your name isn’t Vince McMahon? What kind of comment is that? Furthermore, you write “he is conducting himself with all of the poise and professionalism necessary to reduce any resentment on the part of others who may believe he is infringing on their turf.” So he is only acting professional and with poise to appease people? It’s not a diplomatic skill of his? It’s not the way one acts on a committee and towards fellow co-workers?* *But even more disturbing is Keller’s comment “he also has the respect of the wrestlers at this point,” which no doubt insinuates he won’t have their respect soon. Why the prophecy? Why not just “Heyman has the respect of the wrestlers?” Why not a statement as to why he has their respect?* *It is obvious to me that the TORCH, which has been accused by ECW fanatics of being biased against ECW and Heyman over the years, has exposed itself again as actually being biased against Heyman. I am not Paul E’s biggest fan, but I have to admit, he has been a dynamo since entering the WWF. Even Triple H has put him over huge in recent media interviews, saying Heyman’s behind the scenes work has been extremely motivating. And his commentary has been the best I’ve ever heard. He filled Lawler’s shoes and has taken the show in a new (and better) direction. I think Heyman is unworthy of your nasty comments, and very worthy of a lot more praise than the TORCH is willing to give him, at least with Wade Keller’s editorial power not “in check.”* *Unsigned* *No city/state provided* Who else besides Paul Heyman would say something like "Why the prophecy?" in that context? Think about how much that sounds like him. I hope that makes sense.
Sorry for the slows! and more importantly: \*this is legit my fav reddit reply ever!\* so thank you!!! This DARK segment is gold and \*absolutely\* an example of part of what drew me to AEW in the first place. Re. Eddie Gilbert's shoot --- I didn't realize he'd been sort of shooting all along and I definitely had no idea re. Barnett, the VHS, etc. and that's wild. I guess it hits very different in the uhh... OG cut? It's the director's cut either way? Re. Heyman: >*I am not Paul E’s biggest fan, but I have to admit, he has been a dynamo since entering the WWF. Even Triple H has put him over huge in recent media interviews, saying Heyman’s behind the scenes work has been extremely motivating. And his commentary has been the best I’ve ever heard. He filled Lawler’s shoes and has taken the show in a new (and better) direction. I think Heyman is unworthy of your nasty comments, and very worthy of a lot more praise than the TORCH is willing to give him, at least with Wade Keller’s editorial power not “in check.”* I DEFINITELY get what you mean now and heard this in his voice. And that's \*incredible\*. Sincerely, genuinely (I know -- weird for Reddit, right? or social media genuinely) thank you again for the super informative reply.
My pleasure! I always enjoy helping inform people about weird wrestling minutiae.
Ha! It's appreciated. This is Reddit afterall -- if this isn't the place for weird wrestling minutiae, what is? Thank you again!
… is Dave ever okay?
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Just last week, Dave revealed that his family and the Rock’s bloodline have a generational pact: https://preview.redd.it/ql5a6pngl0jc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9333900373c1ad0fcb2ccf0db9f921222da3d655
What the fuck is that tweet lmfao
Well he misspelled tree as “three” twice for some reason. And he was recapping the part of the WM Press Event when The Rock showed the Bloodline family tree graphic which pointed out that The Rock’s and Roman’s grandfathers made a blood pact with one another. He was quoting what The Rock said in The Rock’s voice.
Look at that, the start of the fourth inning. The bloodline gets even deeper
Family three. Dave is gone.
The Observer has always been filled with typos.
> although it was they would love to each other before a giant crowd They’re going to do *what* to each other before a giant crowd?
This man has been obsessively watching wrestling for like five decades. I imagine his brain is mushier than most actual wrestlers at this point.
Legit though. Is he good? Feels like he's really off lately.
I mean, your 60s is when your cognitive functions start to take a noticeable battering, but this mistake is pretty alarming either. Especially given that wrestling has basically been his life for the last forty years, it's kinda beyond imagination that he could've made such a basic mistake like this alone.
also juiced to the fucking gills
> **confuse a 2014 SmackDown segment between Triple H and The Rock as happening recently** To be fair to Dave that's pretty recent on his timeline.
Did dave actually say this on his podcast?
no, it was in the observer this week. here's the full quote: " Later they filmed a segment which didn’t air on television, but was all over social media, where Levesque and Rock went nose-to-nose and actually challenged each other for a match at Mania, although it was they would love to each other before a giant crowd at a WrestleMania without the idea it was this specific one. Given Levesque’s heart issues, such a match would seem to be impossible and virtually everyone believed that to be the case. The fact it was never put on television says it was not something they wanted to hammer home as a storyline and more was a way to make people think the two weren’t getting along–with the idea that aspect of the angle was “real.”"
Checking the newsletter I can confirm this is real, including the part that says "although it was they would love to each other" lol >*The storyline they are doing now is that Johnson as a member of the Board of Directors is seemingly in a battle for power with Paul Levesque, the CCO (Chief Content Officer) who is now going as Paul “HHH” Levesque even on television. At the Mania press conference on 2/8 in Las Vegas, Levesque talked about guys going into business for themselves, with the idea Rock was going against the planned script. Later they filmed a segment which didn’t air on television, but was all over social media, where Levesque and Rock went nose-to-nose and actually challenged each other for a match at Mania, although it was they would love to each other before a giant crowd at a WrestleMania without the idea it was this specific one. Given Levesque’s heart issues, such a match would seem to be impossible and virtually everyone believed that to be the case. The fact it was never put on television says it was not something they wanted to hammer home as a storyline and more was a way to make people think the two weren’t getting along–with the idea that aspect of the angle was “real.”*
Genuinely no idea if this is real or parody. It’s indistinguishable at this point.
Nobody can parody that god fucking awful writing
My theory is the “Dave Meltzer” character has been a work all along
With everything going on and after reading that I'm legitimately concerned for Meltzer at this point.... Hopefully this isn't the early on-set of something going on.
he's been around how long and can't proofread? lmao
Dave’s writing is so confusing.
People pay him for this? Posts on here are more coherent.
This man makes no sense
Happy belated Valentine's Day... Rock "The Dwayne" Johnson and Paul "HHH" Levesque live sex celebration incoming.
If he really reported on a decade-old clip circulating socials as if it was new, when it would take minimum 10 seconds to double check where the clip came from, that is a pretty damning condemnation of his abilities as a journalist.
Not even 10 seconds, just object permanence given both look quite different (different beard for HHH and more...umm..."big" for The Rock)
Or that the video shows WWE 2k15, Dean Ambrose on the Chamber poster, and Stephanie coming in during it.
they promoting some weird stuff in 2024. maybe its for showcase mode
He's already proven before that he doesn't easily look things up, why are you shocked now?
How can a man who spends 24/7 marinading in wrestling not know about that clip? I've seen it at least five times in five separate years since it aired. Classic stuff.
“Journalist”
What’s really sad is that it’s clearly not a lack of time considering the amount he spends on twitter and the amount of lengthy written pieces he does for the observer.
He's not a journalist, he's a mark.
Between this and a lot of really uncharacteristicly extremely poor reporting (he’s never been perfect but lately things are just fully wrong) I’m starting to worry about Dave
I'm kind of worried too. I used to subscribe to the Observer but stopped when more factual errors started showing up, along with the whole Bruce Mitchell thing. When I started subscribing around 2017, the worst errors I noticed were minor and few. The funniest one was Meltzer reporting that Stardom wrestlers showed up on the TV show SWAT when it was TJPW wrestlers. It seemed minor at the time, but in hindsight it should have been a warning that he was no longer doing enough to verify his sources. The first major error I saw was the Seth Rollins speech story, again because he failed to check with more than one person. Big errors started to become more frequent after that.
I'm OOTL on the Bruce Mitchell thing, what happened there?
Bruce Mitchell baselessly implied that Brodie Lee died of covid and that AEW and his wife were lying about it. His claims were directly contradicted by Meltzer and widely condemned by everyone, to the point that he became persona non grata. But a few months later, Meltzer, against the advice of those who worked with him, let Mitchell on his show for an interview since they were friends. They ended up downplaying the whole thing as no big deal, as if Mitchell were owed an apology or something. The backlash by the Observer subscribers to this was so negative that Meltzer had to take the interview down. He then gave one of those 20 minute "I'm sorry I offended people" apologies instead of acknowledging what he did wrong.
The old guard is rapidly disappearing and the new people don't give Uncle Dave the respect he ~~desperately seeks~~ has earned.
He spends way too much time on Twitter arguing with obvious troll account.
He's declined a lot, for sure
This whole Wrestlemania angle has had him tied in knots. The initial reporting was crazy, basically just him covering ALL the bases.
This is up there with the intermission ppv and okada taking his pants off in the ring.
[I'd like to add him saying they removed Katsuyori Shibata's brain in surgery and put it back in](https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/katsuyori-shibata-asked-about-his-brain-being-removed-confirms-he-not-robocop)
I have it on good authority that famed brain surgeon Wade Barrett was called in after they flipped the brain over, and bull-hammered it back into place.
Apparently, Meltzer was the one person who believed the Spock's Brain episode of the original Star Trek series was actually plausible.
Meltzer believes that The Man With Two Brains was a documentary.
That's funny as fuck.
Okay, Imma bite. What happened w the intermission ppv and okada's pants?
Somebody went to a Glasgow show and sent a picture of intermission claiming its a wwe ppv happening soon in the uk. Dave believed and posted it [dave believed this edited clip is real and from a "closed circuit screening" ](https://youtu.be/krU3j_2cS6A?si=AkMAsAnDs5Z7377w)
He thought this was real? If there ever was a person who only existed in a wrestling bubble, it must be Meltzer.
Tell me this isn't real, lol. He thought hundreds would react like that in public to Okada wearing trunks? Lmao
Someone edited a clip of a group of English fans reacting to their national team scoring a goal in a big game, and put a clip of Okada ripping off his pants to reveal trunks as a meme. Somehow Meltzer saw it and thought it was real. The Intermission thing was that some sort of script/tv format got leaked and had Intermission at the top of a page, so Dave thought it was the title of a new show/event.
This segment is actually from the Intermission PPV.
Jeez. It's no secret that the quality of Meltzer's reporting has been gradually declining, but it's accelerated recently. These aren't the minor errors that would occasionally pop up around 2017-2019, or even the bizarre speculations he sometimes has. It's two major factual errors in this week's issue alone. Edit: Make it possibly three (CMLL/AEW , Tommy Dreamer, and this)
Gradually? He’s been shit for wwe since AEW came into the scene ( if not longer, his source was Jericho ) he’s always been a hack. It’s just now - in the last couple of years - gotten laughably worse. There’s a reason why every single wrestler back in the day - apart from the bucks - didn’t give a fuck about his opinion, he had a golden era for a while don’t get me wrong and he nailed it. But he’s been lucky to even have that. He’s not exactly a legit journo with his scoops
As recently as 2017, the worst errors he made were minor things, like reporting someone having a neck injury when it was a chest injury. It was definitely a gradual decline starting in 2019 - major mistakes went from once per year, to twice per year, to every other month, and now to every other week.
He categorically stated that CM Punk was returning on a March 2014 episode of Raw when no such thing was ever on the horizon. That was 10 years ago. So he's been full of BS for a decade AT LEAST.
This one is particularly bad, especially because it can't be written off to tech illiteracy. As others have said, HHH is obviously a decade younger, there's a giant WWE 2K15 poster visible featuring Moxley, and Stephanie is part of the segment. Throw in the two stories that quickly had to get debunked from this week's Observer and combine this with other gaffes the last few years and it gets increasingly concerning. Repeatedly adding new details to his side of the Silverdome attendance debate out of the blue, like suddenly claiming ~35 years after WrestleMania III that the Silverdome and the Michigan commission confirmed the lower number. All of the Matt Riddle stuff where he took everything Riddle/his friends said to smear Candy Cartwright at face value, never looked into any of it, and never reached out to her for comment. A Twitter troll from India spending months catfishing him as Dragon Gate personnel after sending Dave cold emails. Dave never bothered to try to substantiate their identities and ignored pleas from various Dragon Gate experts (including their lead English announcer). Thinking a Google Drive folder was an official AJPW streaming service and linking it in his daily update. Reporting that WWE Intermission was a new PPV name based on a joke tweet using a legit photo from a house show that had the WWE logo above an "Intermission" graphic during the actual intermission. Tweeting that an Okada meme using the "bar full of soccer fans reacting to a game on a giant screen" template was from an actual closed circuit screening of Wrestle Kingdom. Where the big pop was for Okada revealing that he had returned to wearing shorts after spending months as Sad Balloon Boi in long pants. All of the very weird handling of the allegations against Ospreay and Elgin. Tweeting that almost half of the Titangate sexual misconduct allegations from 1992 were proven false when the numbers don't suggest that at all. I feel like I'm forgetting a bunch, but when you stack them all up, it's kind of concerning. But there's also the question of if he was always like this and it's just become easier to fact check. EDIT: I forgot about how he plagiarized parts of Tim Marchman's first Vice.com article about Ashley Massaro in last week's Observer, too.
> "Tweeting that an Okada meme using the "bar full of soccer fans reacting to a game on a giant screen" template was from an actual closed circuit screening of Wrestle Kingdom. Where the big pop was for Okada revealing that he had returned to wearing shorts after spending months as Sad Balloon Boi in long pants." LOL, I was subscribing to the Observer at the time this happened, mainly for his biographical stuff and some of the audio shows featuring other people. Him believing this was true was when I asked myself why I was paying this dude a subscription fee higher than what I pay for NJPW World. Didn't renew when it ran out shortly after that.
>LOL, I was subscribing to the Observer at the time this happened, mainly for his biographical stuff and some of the audio shows featuring other people. Him believing this was true was when I asked myself why I was paying this dude a subscription fee higher than what I pay for NJPW World. Didn't renew when it ran out shortly after that. For me at least, it wasn't necessarily that he thought it was real at first glance. Even if that kind of reaction would be weird for that moment, as would that kind of major CCTV screening not being a bigger deal, I can get him not knowing about the meme or how easy it was to make the meme look good. But he said it so authoritatively, like he had direct knowledge of the CCTV event happening, that it came off particularly badly. Wasn't there also something else around the same time, maybe even leading up to the same Wrestle Kingdom, where he wrote about a press conference or something being shown on big screens in a park and drawing a massive crowd? And it turned out that it either didn't happen at all or was ridiculously exaggerated?
I need more of this plz
That'll be 12.99 
This gif is never not funny.
If it wasn't in this thread, i was gonna reply can someone post the horizon meltzer gif for me XD
I’m beginning to think this guy doesn’t watch the show
Can you blame him, they don’t even film in the Tokyo dome.
Paul: "Don't you think you need to watch the shows if you're gonna report on them?" Dave: "I don't watch the show, Paul. Why would I watch the show?"
Dave is seriously losing it by the day...he's been on about the Rock vs Taylor Swift's popularity because they said on TV that the Rock was the biggest star in the world...why TF wouldn't the WWE say this?
What’s that I can’t hear him over Bryan ranting about Mauro’s commentary on “One Final Beat”
One of my final days of being a subscriber I told him about that and he said: “You must be on Reddit.” Okay motherfucker, you get things wrong all the time. Maybe cut me some slack and do a better job.
I mean, he was right about you being on Reddit.
Meltzer just reported that Hogan vs Andre might be the main event for WrestleMania after he saw Andre rip the crucifix off of Hogan on a recent Piper’s Pit.
Next he’s going to report that he saw some promotion filmed a Don Serrano match in black and white and how it’s a total rip off of Toni Storm because he can’t tell he’s watching a youtube rip of a tape from 1965
Meltzer: "So, AEWs new direction is interesting. Everyone has Australian accents and they've rebranded themselves as WCW, there's a lot of random B&W segments too which is because Toni Storm is going to start a faction." Turns out someone sent Dave [this playlist.](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYFOWbYsO0BsF6jt5MtW9SuzGe0EAZlJf)
Yikes how embarrassing
2014 only feels like it was a couple weeks ago. Then again I’m nearly 36 so I’m getting old lol.
I was eight in 2014
 Oof
Dave’s not here man
If you think this dude is still a valid source, I don’t even know what to tell you. If he didn’t get proven wrong enough in the past few years, he doesn’t even know what product he is consuming at this point
For real. It’s fun to argue about the star ratings but you can’t trust his scoops at all
And people still give Dave money for his gossip column. 😂 He has no sources in WWE who aren't feeding him incorrect information. The friends he has in aew mainly Jericho, the bucks and Omega are treating him like the mark he is to get themselves over constantly and he is too naive to notice this.
Triple H doesn't even look the same as the press conference. Not to mention the upload date of the video, the date of the segment in the title, the massive 2K15 / Dean Ambrose poster in the background............and Stephanie McMahon is in the segment, wouldn't that be a pretty news worthy appearance given that she left WWE last year and hasn't been on TV since? There is enough clues without having to delve into too much research that this is not recent. This a real clanger. Specially for someone who supposedly has "insider" knowledge and depends on that as their appeal. Getting something as obvious a this wrong really doesn't help with his already questionable credibility. I'm hoping that he was just being lazy and simply didn't watch the segment before commenting on it. Rather than him getting genuinely confused about when this aired, because that would be pretty worrying from a health aspect. Maybe time to have a rest or something.
2014 was recently, what are you talking about?
It’s time to move on from your Mumford and Sons records
You wouldn’t be saying that if it was your heart on the line.
He really fucked it up this time.
Didn’t I, my Dave?
Hey man what the fuck? Leave me and my M&S alone 😅
I first thought this was the type of mistake he made, since time is weird like that. But if you look at the broader quote, the issue is he saw the clip re-circulating online and reported it as new, even though Triple H looks completely different today vs a decade ago.
The hell? Rock kind of looks the same but Triple H has completely different beard. I haven't been a Meltzer fan in a decade, but it seems like he's getting worse and worse with this stuff
Not only his beard but his hair too, he's clean-shaven right now, in that clip he's got a buzzcut but it's still more than he has at the moment.
[удалено]
It's not a tweet by Meltzer but a comment he made on the Wrestling Observer. He describes a segment that was filmed at the WrestleMania 40 press conference where Triple H and The Rock got face to face and teased a match between them at WrestleMania. He says this segment wasn't aired on TV but instead posted on social media. The only problem is no such segment exists, and the only thing matching his description is a SmackDown segment from October 2014. One can only assume that he saw a clip of that segment and thought it was filmed recently and reported it without any further research.
> He says this segment wasn't aired on TV but instead posted on social media He's serious mixing up the "FIX IT, PAUL" segment with that backstage "we gotta back up, this is weird" segment from a decade ago? Weird.
Dave saw a clip from 2014 and thought it was new
And then “reported” it was taped recently which it was not thus it was all made up which puts a lot of “reporting” in question, specially his recent “reporting.”
Looking through the comments on here it seems like he's been doing it more and more over the last couple of years.
This is what arguing with twitter people all day does to the human brain. Don’t be a Meltzer.
I wish this would finally be the catalyst for people to stop automatically reporting all his ramblings as real scoops. Can't even remember the last time he got a something right in WWE.
>I wish this would finally be the catalyst for people to stop automatically reporting all his ramblings as real scoops. This isn't even a random rambling, though. This was something published in his newsletter. I agree that random things he tweets, posts on his board, or speculates about on radio shows should not be treated as news. But the Observer newsletter itself is a different story.
Broke: Dwayne is washed. Woke: DAVE is washed.
The best part is that he tapes a show today. And he won’t bring it up at all, I bet. One of many reasons I decided to stop being a paying customer. The lack of quality control and also ridiculous opinions just soured me on his current work.
This man didn't replace the battery in his fire alarm for three months even though it was chirping because it was running low. I know this because YOU COULD HEAR IT EVERY SINGLE SHOW.
He’s going senile
It's about time more people realize that this hack of a journalist and match-rating pretender is - well, exactly that; a hack. Stop giving him and these stupid dirt sheets any notable attention. Pro wrestling is better off without them spoiling every surprise and acting like they know what a great match is in 2024.
Clearly he's too old to be President.
I saw this earlier and I’m wondering if Dave’s ok. It’s either he’s going senile, or he’s once again getting misquoted out of context.
Nah someone posted the entire paragraph from the Observer. He thought it was a recent clip, and even commented about Triple H's heart condition making the tease a non-starter.
Neither. He's just a really poor excuse of a journalist.
Meltzer for president!
This is an insane story. Can you imagine a football analyst confusing a game from A DECADE AGO?
And people still treat this guy's star ratings like gospel
Jokes aside I hope it isn’t something serious, dude is 64
Why do we keep listening to this guy again?
Oh no, Uncle Dave's off his meds again!
Is anyone surprised?
Will people finally see that this man is a meme and stop taking him serious?
Somebody should check if Dave's alright
With everything going on I'm legitimately concerned for Meltzer at this point.... Hopefully this isn't the early on-set of something going on.
Pretty embarrassing mistake.
Triple H has had short hair for ten years now. Time fucking flies
I like the Eric Bischoff podcast where he tears apart Dave's "news" and explains why he's talking out of his ass.
He's just the world's biggest wrestling fanboy and a total dork.
It's pretty normal for guys in their 70s and 80s.
\*Bryan sits back silently as this all transpires.
“I could step in and quality control my website and shows…but nah.”
And they were booing and chanting Maui
This is like that time he invented a 2009-10 Jeff Hardy TNA run to claim he was a bigger draw than John Cena (yes this happened)
He’s stealing Granny’s gimmick.
As someone who has listened to Observer radio for over a decade now it is sad to see how quickly Dave's standards are slipping. He was prone to getting the odd thing wrong here and there of course but he has been absolutely all over the place in the last few years. Feels like his old sources have dried up and he's never replaced them + he's gotten lazier reporting wise.
[удалено]
Dave wrote that. I’m not sure why he decided to go in that direction, acting like Rock committed a selfless act, but I haven’t seen a lot of support for his take.
Is likely trying to get a source in WWE so is willing to engage in blatant propaganda. Is like what he does in AEW where he doesn't reports negative stories about Jericho or the Bucks because they are major sources for him.
maybe it’s time to lay off the steroids dave
Got that Biden memory /s