Meet the Acclaimed Newsmen of Wrestling

If you have been living under a rock or maybe you just heard his name recently on Bruce Prichard’s podcast, Dave Meltzer has been Pro-Wrestling’s most respected journalist since 1983. Dave hails from Sacramento, California and is the most physically fit journalist in the game today. Before Dave became more mainstream as far as subscribers are concerned, he used to be wrestling’s dirty little secret, as often Promoters would all read the observer weekly, but keep it strictly kayfabe from the boys, as it was not acceptable for the wrestlers to bring it into locker rooms. My favorite promoter, the late Dennis Coraluzzo used to insert the observer into the mass booklet at church and read it during Sunday mass as told by the priest at his funeral. The observer itself is a weekly publication that does an excellent job informing the fans about news, his views, but Dave’s best work as a writer is when he covers the past of the wrestling business; which is usually focused upon when Dave writes his Year end awards issue, but especially the obituaries when wrestling’s stars of yonder sadly pass away. There is no mistaking that he is one of the top 2 writers in his field, but personally I feel that he still has too much fan in him; especially when I listen to his Wrestling Observer Radio program which can be reached at Figure Four Daily. Mostly none of the writers are exempt from this, however Dave Scherer does the best job removing himself from personal tastes when reporting the news. With that being said, Dave in my opinion is the number 1 guy in his field and I don’t know where the business would be if he didn’t exist in this field. Therefore I am much grateful that he does exist as he does what he does better than anybody.

Wade Keller is one of the original wrestling journalist along with his partner Bruce Mitchel. Coming from frosty Minneapolis, MN, Wade Keller started his Pro-Wrestling Torch in 1987 and has been growing ever since. Even though they are both weekly publications, The Torch is written and edited very different from his west coast counterpart from California. Wade also is the brain behind Pro Wrestling Podcasts and also runs the Torch podcast shows that air every weekday and ppv weekends where they take callers and report on the news, while also conducting interviews with the best in the business. It is truly can’t miss audio and like Meltzer’s website, the majority of their archives can take you back to listen to practically millions of hours of audio files going back 25 years. If you subscribe, you’re definitely getting the most bang for your buck. Like I mentioned with Meltzer, Wade Keller sometimes lets his emotions get the better of him while recording his podcast, as he has been known to lose his cool and go off on rants on the WWE creative department. I can remember him ranting everyday during the burying of Daniel Bryan, but with all the backlash that happened, the WWE was forced to change their creative direction and they actually went with Daniel Bryan to highlight the great fairy tale ending that was Wrestlemania 30. Wade is also the first openly gay Pro-Wrestling Journalisr becoming a role model for many like him looking to write about Wrestling.

Dave Scherer has the most interesting backstory of them all, as he openly admitted in his early Pro-Wrestling Lariat newsletter that he had an addiction to alcohol. Dave started going to ECW when it was known as Eastern Championship Wrestling and led an army of superfans to help ECW become what it became. Dave didn’t ask for any of this, but thousands gravitated toward him when he sat opposite of the hard camera and he became the leader of “The Bleacherbums”. Dave started the aforementioned Pro-Wrestling Lariat and was very influential in getting ECW over with the tape-trading fans via the lariat. At the arena is where he met most of his staff, who have since become life-long friends. Dave then began 1Wrestling with Bob Ryder, but now is the owner of the very respected PWInsider. Originally from Marmora, NJ, he now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where he is in charge of day to day operations with PWINSIDER. Out of the three mentioned in this part 1 edition , Dave is the most levelheaded of the bunch and tows the line as a Journalist, as he rarely crosses the line back into fandom, In otherwords, Dave gets the big picture and hardly finds himself marking out over creative issues.

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