Thought of the Day: On The Outside Looking In

It’s their world and we’re just watching it.The other day, someone posted a comment on here praising me for my analysis, knowledge and reviews.  I appreciated that quite a bit and still shake my head when I read such kind words written about me, but there’s something everyone needs to keep in mind: wrestling journalists, reviewers, writers or whatever you want to call us are almost all on the outside looking in.

Unless there’s something I’m unaware of, neither Dave Meltzer, Bryan Alvarez, Wade Keller, Scott Keith, certainly not myself, or any other wrestling writer have big time wrestling experience.  I’m well aware that several of them have sources inside WWE, TNA and/or ROH, but that’s the key to it: those sources are inside and reporting things to the people outside.  There are things that we’re never going to know about or understand no matter how smart we think we are, how well read we think we are, or how many reviews we browse, shows we watch or shoot interviews we download every day.

Side note: Shoot interviews are not some uncovered gospel.  There’s no one hooking the wrestlers up to a lie detector and threatening them with a bullet to the head if they tell the truth.  I can’t count how many times people have sworn something is true because it was a SHOOT.  Wrestlers make their livings lying to us every single night, but I’m supposed to take everything they say as true because they tell me it’s true now?  It doesn’t work that way.  Do you think a guy who might be able to get a job in WWE in the future is going to tell the truth and say he hates WWE’s business practices and that it would be a nightmare to work there?  Shoot interviews are another way for wrestlers to get us to pay for their stories, just like we do when we go to a show.  Same idea.

At the end of the day, I’m a wrestling fan that has watched a lot of wrestling in my life.  I have what I consider a fairly decent knowledge of modern wrestling history, but the only things I know for sure are what I’m given on screen.  No matter how you look at it, everything we know is based on what people inside allow us to know.  Take everything any wrestling writer or journalist (myself certainly included) with a grain of salt the size of a Buick.  We’re going on what we’re told, but there’s no guarantee that anything we’re told is true.

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