1. Figure 4 Online scrapes the bottom of the barrel for news items.
News isn't always "hard". It's not just a wrestling thing to report on soft news or puff items, but Bryan Alvarez sometimes scrapes the bottom of the barrel with his daily updates for F4W Online. Over the summer, he gave us the SCINTILLATING news that Evan Bourne was in Las Vegas looking to score tickets to a UFC event. He also brought us the nugget of there being a song they used at a wrestling event once being used in a TV show. Hard hitting stuff there, guys.
2. The New York Daily News reports Sting is headed to WrestleMania... oops!
It's not just the dirtsheets that engage in bad information dissemination. Nope, legitimate media does too. King Jordan, who writes about wrestling for the NYDN, ran with a report that Sting had eschewed offers from TNA in favor of a WWE contract that would include a WrestleMania match with Undertaker. Because it wasn't from one of the online sources, it had to be right, right? Well, obviously many who got worked up over this report overestimated the capacity of print media for accuracy. As we all know, Sting showed back up in TNA as their answer to the Undertaker surprise vignettes, which got him a World Championship and the distinction of being the trivia answer to "Who was on the other side of the ring when Jeff Hardy showed up to Victory Road fucked up out of his mind?"
3. WrestleZone... no, that's all I have to say
It's one thing to be a cut and paste site that relies on the top tier of wrestling reporters (Dave Meltzer, Mike Johnson, Wade Keller) for information, often without credit. There are tons of those sites out there, so it'd be pointless to call them all out. WrestleZone, however, has a special place dirtsheet hell with their "commentary" offerings from luminaries like Mark Madden and Kevin Kelly. The former's trolling columns are the subject of FJMs from many, but the latter, an employee of ROH no less, writing columns about how Alberto del Rio won't be a major star because he's not a white male just takes the cake.
4. Bryan Alvarez rips a cage match for being 3+ stars.
I hate to pick on Alvarez... okay, maybe I don't, but still, he deserves it. Here's the text of his review of Jeff Jarrett/Kurt Angle at Lockdown:
Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Jarrett in an ULTRA MALE RULES MATCH INSIDE A STEEL CAGE. What are Ultra Male rules? Well, first fall submission, second fall pin, third fall FLEE. Yeah. They sent Karen to the back. Why? So she would not interfere in this STEEL CAGE MATCH. So basically, in the pinfall fall you can't win via submission, and in the submission fall you can't pin a guy? Doesn't sound like much of an ultra match to me. And with that said they still went for nearfalls and the ref still counted. I just can't believe this place sometimes. Jarrett put on a figure four early but Angle wouldn't quit. Angle ended up going shoulder-first into the post, then Jeff gave him an enzuigiri to the shoulder, then put him in -- an ARM bar. Angle switched the armbar into an ankle lock for the submission. That'll teach Jeff for being so dumb. Anyway, not a long fall but it was very good. Second fall was pinfall only. They did a great spot where Jeff went for the stroke but Angle shoved him into the cage and then hit an Olympic slam. Jeff kicked out. Kurt tried his run-up-the-ropes spot but he slipped. He climbed up, did the suplex, and somehow landed right on Jeff's head. Jeff looked hurt. Angle covered him and Jeff kicked out, but then just lied there, clearly hurting bad. Crowd chanted "SLOPPY SECONDS!" Well, about ten guys. Jarrett was badly messed up but kept working. Not good, because he probably had a concussion. Angle went for an Olympic slam but Jeff turned it into a cradle and grabbed the tights for the pin. But then the ref didn't call for the bell. Crowd went silent. Nobody knew what the hell was happening. Why does this shit never happen in WWE? So finally Borash just announced that we were in the third fall. Jarrett shook the cobwebs off and went to work. So now the goal was to RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, here in this ultra male match. Angle did all his rolling Germans, then went to escape. As he was about to hit the ground he changed his mind, went back inside and locked the door. Didn't we see this with Anderson? Jarrett juiced, the first guy on this show believe it or not. Angle went to climb out over Jarrett but Jarrett came up underneath him and gave him a powerbomb off the top rope. Angle over-rotated and appeared to land right on his fucking head. They showed a replay and he actually over-rotated so far that he missed his head, but just barely. Had he rotated just slightly less he'd be dead right now. TNA needs to prevent this guy from wrestling for his own good. Jarrett went to climb but Angle popped up, ran up the ropes and gave Jeff the Angle slam. He went to climb out but GUNNER -- yes, GUNNER -- ran down with a chair and stopped him. I wish I was making this up. It gets worse. Kurt then proceeded to squat on the top rope and pray to the Lord. Luckily for Kurt the Lord was one of the 14,000 watching this show, so he protected Kurt as this crazy bastard did his cage moonsault which we will look back on some day as having left him ultimately in a wheelchair. He missed, but Jarrett lunged at him to try to make contact. Both guys were dead. Scott Steiner ran down and killed Gunner. Angle went to leave but Karen sprayed him with perfume. Jarrett went to leave but Kurt grabbed his leg and put him in the ankle lock. Karen slid Jeff a guitar, which he used to clonk Angle. Jarrett spent too much time celebrating his supposed win and Kurt grabbed his ankle again. So Karen, of course, slammed the cage door on Kurt's head and Jeff fell outside to win. Hey, as a match this was pretty fucking awesome. But Jesus Christ, these people running TNA don't give a shit about the well-being of their performers. Not that this is news. I really, REALLY don't want to see someone die on PPV, but at this point it seems inevitable. It pains me to even rate this but hopefully the people in charge at TNA have long since given up on reading or listening to anything I say or write.Sounds like a real shit show, right? What would someone guess his star rating for this match would be? One snowflake? DUD? Negative snowflakes? Nope. Here's the rating:
***3/4Yep. YEP. No one can make this shit up.
5. Miz and Brodus Clay are being buried! BURIED!
Survivor Series buyrates come back low, and sources within the company leak out that Miz is the one who's being blamed for them. Not The Rock, not John Cena, not R-Truth, but The Miz. He's being deemphasized. So what happens? He just gets the iron man slot in the Rumble match. Miz THEN fails to catch R-Truth on a spot to the outside, and the dirtsheets start popping up with reports that he's buried and done and that Triple H dressed him down backstage according to nebulous "sources". Oh he was done. In fact, we should probably start counting down the days before he was future endeavored. Except he then was the last to be eliminated in the RAW Chamber. Yup. Then, Brodus Clay gets taken off TV for spell, and the dirtsheets all start reporting that he's being sent back down to developmental because he can't work. Except he was still on tour, on dark matches, with the same gimmick, having to go to Twitter saying he wasn't going anywhere. Point is, speculation isn't news, but don't tell the dirtsheets.
6. Mike Johnson thinks one 10-year old represents all the kids WWE is trying to reach.
This is the piece de resistance. It's not terrible because Johnson seems to dislike Santino. Not at all. My beef is that it's bad reporting, period. What Johnson did was ask an interminably small sample size and pass it off like this kid was representative of EVERY person in WWE's target audience. It's anecdotal bullshit that takes opinion and masks it as fact. It'd be lazy for me, a blogger who does it for free, to pull off, so doesn't anyone think that a guy who gets paid to do it for a living should be held to a higher standard? Yeah, I thought so.
Obviously though, there are people who do good work in wrestling writing and news reporting. Meltzer, though apathetic seeming, still has good analysis even if his news lacks. Keller and Johnson break stories. All the main dirtsheets have good writers employed by them, including Pro Wrestling Dot Net with Chris Shore and Will Pruett. That being said? The imperfections are glaring and deserve mockery. The medium needs an enema.
