Meltzer publishes rare addendum to earlier Saturday News Update
In a stunning turn of events today, pro wrestling news journalist Dave Meltzer posted a followup news update to his F4Wonline.com website just an hour or so after the site’s main news update had been published by de facto editor of the Figure Four Weekly wrestling newsletter David Bixenspan.
Bixenspan’s update on Saturday was notable for being the single most newsless update in months on the site, suffering from a staggering 3,318 word deficit when compared to the amount of space given to newsletter plugs.
The earlier, 554-word report was essentially a listing of coverage of where to find other wrestling news—similar to how Sheet Sandwich publishes its own daily news update, looking at how the world of wrestling has been covered for that day. This approach, apparently, was not cutting it for Meltzer, who published his own 729-word report about an hour and a half later that also featured a full WWE Network schedule for Sunday from Bert Duckwall.
While some readers have speculated that Meltzer published his follow-up news as a direct response to the Sandwich report of Saturday’s dire news situation, it is more likely that Meltzer’s main impetus for the report stems from his request for coverage of weekend TNA tapings, WWE shows, and Metamoris on iPPV later Saturday night.
There was little of note in Metlzer’s update by way of news, other than the lineups to the shows he’s looking for reports on, some notes and lineups from Japan.
It is, however, interesting to note a bit of backstage coverage at TNA’s taping Thursday night, where Meltzer made note of Chris Hero being backstage at the show—something Mike Johnson at PWInsider had covered at length far earlier in the day.
F4Wonline’s double news day comes amidst increased scrutiny underlining the lack of daily news actually provided on the site’s daily update—which is seeming increasingly more like a means to publish newsletter hype, and far less than ever before a vehicle for reporting news to wrestling fans.
Since taking over several days worth of news updates formerly covered by Bryan Alvarez, David Bixenspan has come under fire for his lackadaisical approach to the news on the site, offering little in the way of reporting, and deferring instead to posting cross-links provided on twitter by sources like Trevor the Irish wrestling fan.
Alvarez, meanwhile, hasn’t written a thing on the site in months, focusing instead on increasing the quality of the audio podcasts on the site, leaving some to publicly speculate as to the site’s commitment to publishing news articles outside of the Wrestling Observer weekly newsletter.
“using Mick Foley’s “testicular fortitude” pet berm”
Whenever I see “by David Bixenspan” in the daily update, that’s an automatic back button click for me (well, I guess not today). Tacking on a few links to a listing of classic Observers that hasn’t been updated since right after the merger.