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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2021 16:38:19 GMT -5
Dave Meltzer has had a few controversial moments in recent years (remember when he compared the use of the term “mark” in wrestling to a black person being called the n word?) but in the past few weeks particularly something definitely seems to be up with him.
It started off with him getting heat for talking about demographics and Youtube numbers and saying that Indians are worthless to advertisers. Now maybe advertisers aren’t that interested in Indian people giving Youtube videos millions of views but there HAD to have been a more sensitive way for him to say that without describing an entire continent as worthless. For someone who’s been a professional journalist for decades though Meltzer has somehow always been horrible with his choice of words so I could buy that maybe he wasn’t actually trying to be offensive here.
When Apollo Crews debuted his new gimmick recently Meltzer absolutely trashed it, saying it sets wrestling back 35 years. This despite Crews himself saying it was his idea and he loves that he’s getting to embrace his Nigerian roots. Hell, Nigeria’s presidential aide officially endorsed Apollo too. Elderly white male Dave Meltzer though thinks that it’s, and I quote, racist and embarrassing.
Someone pointed out that Bad Bunny was really popular and Meltzer tried to play it down saying that, and these were his exact words again, Bunny was just “an ethnic celebrity.” The same Bad Bunny who was the most streamed music artist in the WORLD last year, has had number one hits on the album and singles charts in multiple countries including yep, even America and performed at the Superbowl half-time show last year and on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago.
Before the New Japan Cup show a few weeks ago, he made a point to tell anyone who thinks about criticizing Kevin Kelly’s announcing to “please die.”
And his latest on Bad Bunny, talking about his segment on Raw this week during his radio show yesterday. "I thought they would gimmick the car, I thought the wheels would fall off, because they’re supposed to be like Puerto Ric... you know what I mean?” Yes, we know exactly what your casual racism means, Dave. And they’re not “supposed” to be Puerto Rican, Bunny and Priest are Puerto Rican.
And while not “offensive” like the rest, he reported something Triple H said in a recent meeting to the NXT roster that he had to admit the next day was bullshit.
No one can take away the fact that he knows a lot about wrestling history but anytime this man speaks about minorities (and women too if we're being honest looking at his history) there's a 50/50 chance he's going to say something at worst racist and at best insensitive. It's sad that wrestling is seen as such a dumb thing by most people that no one really cares and he's still considered credible. If this was the most respected journalist of any legit sport they would be finished after making some of the comments he's made.
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Dub H
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Post by Dub H on Apr 7, 2021 16:40:59 GMT -5
I mean there was people of color that think the Crews gimmick ia racist too.I dont think that part is problematic.
But yeh the puerto ricam thing was some old fashioned casual racism.
I also noticed he was overly aggresive a couple weeks ago for some reason.
The thing about Meltzer is that yeh the puerto rican thing eas racist,but it will be lost among the 1000 fake attacks peoe try.to pull on him.Even in your own post with the Trips thing which is just part of the job, not thr first time he was wrong about something and had to take it back
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2021 16:45:49 GMT -5
Yea especially lately Meltz has just busting at his seems with this casual racisim of his.
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Post by eJm on Apr 7, 2021 16:51:34 GMT -5
And while not “offensive” like the rest, he reported something Triple H said in a recent meeting to the NXT roster that he had to admit the next day was bullshit. Ok, the other stuff is not a great look, I can agree, but that isn't what he said. He said the comments about AEW "bullying" them in that meeting were BS.
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Post by Viking Hall on Apr 7, 2021 16:55:12 GMT -5
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Post by One-Armed Drummer of Defrebel on Apr 7, 2021 16:56:52 GMT -5
The thought of someone being ready to kill for Kevin Kelly
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Post by eJm on Apr 7, 2021 16:57:35 GMT -5
The thought of someone being ready to kill for Kevin Kelly ...I mean, I'm not going to say I wouldn't be ready to kill for Kevin Kelly...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2021 17:01:55 GMT -5
Well the Apollo gimmick IS racist and embarrassing, and as I said in another thread, I believe it was his idea the way I believe bringing up Reid's death was Charlotte's idea.
Otherwise yeah, Meltzer's been on a bad streak as of late. The Puerto Rican comment is slightly better in-context - basically he was saying that Bad Bunny and Damian Priest saying "Do you know where we come from?" was setting up some sort of comeuppance on Miz and Morrison - but it's still not remotely a good look.
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lucas_lee
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Post by lucas_lee on Apr 7, 2021 17:02:24 GMT -5
Yea especially lately Meltz has just busting at his seems with this casual racisim of his. Yeah the warning signs were all there before. Im still shocked Uncle Dave is this casually racist
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2021 17:15:25 GMT -5
And while not “offensive” like the rest, he reported something Triple H said in a recent meeting to the NXT roster that he had to admit the next day was bullshit. Ok, the other stuff is not a great look, I can agree, but that isn't what he said. He said the comments about AEW "bullying" them in that meeting were BS. That's what I said? He was the one who reported the bullying line then said the next day it didn't actually happen. Like I said, that's the least of his problems lately anyway and at least he admitted he was wrong (even if he didn't actually apologize for it) which he hasn't for any of the actual problematic stuff he's said, outside of the apology he made to Peyton Royce a few years ago.
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Post by mrpeacock on Apr 7, 2021 17:15:58 GMT -5
I had an issue with his thought that blood and violence run off women too. That’s kind of an antiquated thought. I watched the last AEW Ppv with a group of people and one was a women that only watched WWE. She was loving the Moxley vs Omega match up until the ending of the night. She loved the blood and thought wrestling was missing it.
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Post by eJm on Apr 7, 2021 17:17:24 GMT -5
Ok, the other stuff is not a great look, I can agree, but that isn't what he said. He said the comments about AEW "bullying" them in that meeting were BS. That's what I said? He was the one who reported the bullying line then said the next day it didn't actually happen. Like I said, that's the least of his problems lately anyway and at least he admitted he was wrong (even if he didn't actually apologize for it) which he hasn't for any of the actual problematic stuff he's said, outside of the apology he made to Peyton Royce a few years ago. You worded it broadly, that was my issue. It's the least of the problems but sometimes these threads misinterpret what people actually say so it was better to change the focus away from that and clarify it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2021 17:22:23 GMT -5
I mean, even if it is completely his idea (which I highly doubt) the Apollo thing is still a ridiculous racist cartoon. Same way that the Orlando Jordan, "He's bi so he's basically a rapist," gimmick wasn't okay just because it was his idea.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2021 17:27:20 GMT -5
I had an issue with his thought that blood and violence run off women too. That’s kind of an antiquated thought. I watched the last AEW Ppv with a group of people and one was a women that only watched WWE. She was loving the Moxley vs Omega match up until the ending of the night. She loved the blood and thought wrestling was missing it. Yeah, I saw that he went on a 20 minute rant about AEW's booking problems and he usually loves AEW. He's just been acting strange lately. I heard his mother passed away a few months ago. That would understandably have a huge effect on anybody. Maybe he just needs a break. He's been doing this full-time for what, 40 years? It might be a good idea to even just let someone take over the radio shows for a month or two to lighten his workload. Not that I'm giving him a pass for all this stuff. He's said a lot of terrible shit going back years.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2021 17:45:45 GMT -5
I had an issue with his thought that blood and violence run off women too. That’s kind of an antiquated thought. I watched the last AEW Ppv with a group of people and one was a women that only watched WWE. She was loving the Moxley vs Omega match up until the ending of the night. She loved the blood and thought wrestling was missing it. To be fair, Meltzer did say this line of thought came from him speaking to a woman friend (one who's been watching wrestling as long as him) who told him "I don't like the blood and guts stuff" and has since stopped watching AEW. So it's a logical fallacy (the old "plural of anecdote isn't data") rather than sexism in this case.
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Post by Cyno on Apr 7, 2021 17:47:34 GMT -5
He did a hard 180 from AEW's cheerleader to being way more critical about them when they showed they were still going to be a sports entertainment style of company and not Puroresu: American Edition.
Though just because a PoC is doing a racist gimmick, it doesn't absolve the gimmick of racism. The shit with the spear got called out by plenty of Black people, too.
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Dub H
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Post by Dub H on Apr 7, 2021 18:30:24 GMT -5
He did a hard 180 from AEW's cheerleader to being way more critical about them when they showed they were still going to be a sports entertainment style of company and not Puroresu: American Edition. Though just because a PoC is doing a racist gimmick, it doesn't absolve the gimmick of racism. The shit with the spear got called out by plenty of Black people, too. That wont stop people of saying that he is still.AEW media boy,or that AEW should disassociate from him. People on reddit immediatelly tried to lump AEW with this ,which is always crazy.
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Post by Jaws the Shark on Apr 7, 2021 19:30:52 GMT -5
I will preface this by saying that I haven't actually listened to most of what he said (I have no desire to listen to WOR for various reasons) so I'm just going by brief quotes and what various people have said about it and I could be wrong in my interpretation. But I do think sometimes when it comes to this stuff he is taken out of context and things are misinterpreted. And admittedly he does bring a lot of it on himself by, you know, talking and writing without a filter, but some of it just gets twisted and then used as a stick with which to beat him relentlessly.
The stuff about the Indian market wasn't worded especially diplomatically, but he made it very clear that it was the view of advertisers rather than his own perception, but it immediately got twisted into "Dave Meltzer is racist against Indian people." When it comes to Bad Bunny, it struck me as Meltzer being an out-of-touch boomer rather than a racist, and referring to what he saw as Bad Bunny's huge popularity with a particular demographic. The car thing I was led to understand was him poking fun at a racial stereotype rather than trying to perpetuate it himself, but it became "Dave Meltzer hates Puerto Ricans." Regarding Apollo Crews, regardless of whose idea it was or wasn't, I don't think it's unfair to perceive a black wrestler carrying a spear around and talking in a bad "African" accent to be racist. The same goes for a lot of the things he says about women wrestlers, he gets trashed a lot for something he said about Peyton Royce, and he undoubtedly f***ed up big time and deserved to be criticised, but he did own up to it and clarified what he actually meant.
Now, while I don't think Meltzer is necessarily racially prejudiced or a misogynist, I do think he's got a massive problem with expressing himself like a sensible human being would, and I think he needs to never be allowed near a live microphone and to have his written work vetted (like any other journalist would) to stop him coming out with some of these ill-considered, insensitive comments that he does. And as I said, he doesn't help himself by being as confrontational as he is on Twitter. At the same time - and I'm not for a moment accusing anyone here of this - I think the backlash against him has gone too far and entered the realms of vindictiveness. He deserves to be criticised when he gets it wrong, but we've reached a point now where there are people whose entire existence seems to be dedicated to discrediting everything he says, or carrying on this insane vendetta; when his mum died a few months ago, the thread about it on Reddit's wrestling sub had to be locked because it was being trolled so relentlessly. And it really needs to stop just as he needs to stop saying silly things.
TL;DR: Dave Meltzer is indeed a curmudgeonly, argumentative boomer who says some ridiculous and insensitive things, but it's because of stupidity rather than real malice and prejudice.
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Post by James Fabiano on Apr 7, 2021 19:34:27 GMT -5
The thought of someone being ready to kill for Kevin Kelly So Meltzer is now on the same level with Joey Janela. Got it.
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petef3
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Post by petef3 on Apr 7, 2021 22:56:04 GMT -5
Meltzer's stuff about blood turning women off is not just anecdotes or speculation, it's factual demonstrable data borne out in ratings. Blood and excessive violence turns off more women than it draws in men, even for something as well-received and watched as Britt Baker vs. Thunder Rosa.
The plural of anecdote is not data, that is true--so an anecdote about a woman at a gathering who liked the violence is similarly meaningless. She's an exception.
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