∇
troperville

∇
tools

∇
toys

SubpagesMain
Wrestling
YMMV

main index

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

random

Subpages:

Wrestling: The Wrestling Observer Newsletter

"Hooooooooow's it going everybody?'"

— Bryan Alvarez

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter (WON) is a professional wrestling magazine first published in 1983 by Dave Meltzer. Initially published as a way to keep wrestling fans in the loop of smaller and international promotions that wouldn't be covered by other, more mainstream publications, it eventually grew in reputation as a Smark friendly magazine, and is to this day the most well respected publication covering pro wrestling.

Ric Flair mentioned in his 2004 autobiography, To Be the Man, that the WON is the Bible for wrestlers. Aside from Flair, several professional wrestlers or promoters have read or made a mention to it, among them being Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, and Mick Foley.

Particularly notable is the "5-star" match rating system, to which Meltzer has given a 5 star rating to only 76 matches in the publications multi-decade spanning history. The most recent of these matches was Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Minoru Suzuki at the New Japan Pro Wrestling King of Pro-Wrestling event (shown on iPPV) on October 8, 2012.

In 2008, the Wrestling Observer website merged with Bryan Alvarez's popular wrestling website Figure Four Daily. Meltzer now pens regular news updates to the website, while the Wrestling Observer brand is applied to a daily radio show hosted by Alvarez. There is also a weekly Wrestling Observer Live show hosted by Alvarez and Mike Sempervive which airs on the Sports Byline USA satellite radio network. In recent years, both the Wrestling Observer and Figure Four Weekly have dedicated more and more coverage to MMA this has proven to be no small cause of controversy among fans of the site.

Though both the Wrestling Observer and Figure Four Weekly are published under the same brand, the two newsletters have distinctive feels. The Observer focuses more on straightforward news coverage and historic profiles, while Figure Four Weekly is focused more on Alvarez's comedic status as a Caustic Critic. On the radio shows, both Alvarez and Meltzer are masters of snark.

Examples:

open/close all folders

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Broke The Rating Scale: Dave and Bryan infrequently rate horrible matches with negative ratings (Bryan's "MINUS FIVE STARS" for Jenna Morasca vs. Sharmell being infamous), but a match between The Bushwackers and The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff was rated "absolute zero" by Dave and "minus more stars than there are stars in the universe, and the universe is infinite" by Bryan.
Deadpan Snarker: Meltzer seems to be one in a whimsical sense.
Insult Backfire: When Hulk Hogan appeared to burn a copy of a "rag sheet" at World War 3 1995, he shouted "OBSERVE THIS!" Moments before he claimed that it said The Giant was going to win at the main event (Meltzer predicted Sting or Randy Savage) and claimed that a report stating Savage had an arm injury was false (despite the injured arm being noticeably smaller than the healthy arm and the commentary playing it up). Despite the misinformation, Meltzer took it as a compliment that the biggest star in wrestling spent a whole segment burying him.
Long Runners: Established in 1980, making it the longest running wrestling newsletter in print today.
- To go even further, Dave has been writing newsletters on-and-off since 1970!
Shown Their Work: Anytime a major wrestler passes away Dave Meltzer goes out of his way to write up an in depth biography for next week's newsletter.
- Dave also frequently goes above and beyond the call of duty for the annual "Hall of Fame" issue.

Wrestling Observer Radio and other shows

Artifact Title: Dr. Keith Lipinski no longer hosts "Dr. Keith Presents."
Precision F-Strike: Usually when Dave swears, one time describing a nonsensical TNA angle with Dixie Carter and ending by shouting "What the fuck!?"
Shaped Like Itself: "It was a match" or "they had a match" is often said to describe a So Okay, It's Average wrestling match.
Southern Fried Genius: Karl Stern
Verbal Tic: Dave says "ya know" a lot.

Figure Four Weekly

Early Installment Weirdness: Started as a parody newsletter. Then the parody articles were folded into a section called "Frank A. Gotch's Flying Mare" before ultimately being phased out.
The Wiki Rule: A parody wiki no less.

The Bryan & Vinny Show

Caustic Critic
Christmas Episode: An annual tradition centered on drinking.
Cool Old Lady: Granny
Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Brent Kremen... dear god.
- Granny has her moments.
Deadpan Snarker: Vince Verhei
Hypocritical Humor: Anytime Bryan complains about people who spell their name differently, such as replacing the "i" in Brian with a "y".
Public Domain Soundtrack
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: This seems to be Brent's relationship with Vinny in real life.
- Bryan has had this relationship with several board posters, specifically Anchor.
Stupid Statement Dance Mix: Listeners frequently send in clips of songs enhanced by samples from the radio shows or wrestling television.