WWE's actual opinion of "wrestling media," in their own words
Since we need a refresher, let's go back to how they characterized the "wrestling media" in court in 1993...
I’m writing this a few hours removed from WWE Backlash France and the post-show press conference that ended with Paul Levesque getting so flustered by a question about Drew Gulak that he insulted Fightful and PWInsider. This comes after weeks of an increasingly loud dialogue about WWE’s PR strategy that was sparked by various segments Joe Lanza did on The Flagship Wrestling Podcast, so it was only natural that this was followed by both outlets explaining how WWE tried to massage the situation when contacted by them. And while WWE’s current PR regime, led by Chris Legentil, a Nick Khan hire, is just a few years old, he’s just continuing the same WWE PR strategy of years past. That is: Be superficially nice to media — whether wrestling media or otherwise — when it sits you, only to go completely scorched earth the second they do something WWE doesn’t like.
There’s one time in particular, though, where the actual, blunt, unfiltered feelings of WWE brass about wrestling media were truly laid bare. Sure, there have always been the occasional potshots. For example, Vince McMahon called Dave Meltzer a “gossip columnist” and “dirt monger” during his 2007 testimony before a Congressional committee. And Paul Levesque spun a yarn about Wade Keller to try to make him look bad in a 2013 Grantland interview that Wade felt the need to respond to so as to set the record straight. But that’s about it, especially in recent times, as WWE has made an effort to be more outwardly friendly to wrestling media in the last decade or so. However, that superficial friendliness wasn’t there in 1993.
That was the year where WWE sued Phil Mushnick and the New York Post for defamation while also suing Geraldo Rivera, his companies, his producers, David Schultz, and Rita Chatterton over some kind of alleged “civil conspiracy.” The former, in particular, was clearly an attempt to silence media, which seemingly worked, with Mushnick dropping his coverage of the sexual misconduct scandals in WWE. But during the year or so the lawsuit was ongoing, it was a bitter one that WWE was seemingly trying to use as a fishing expedition.
This isn’t purely conjecture on my part: WWE attempted to turn the discovery process from various lawsuits into a series of WWF Magazine hit pieces on their enemies, starting with Superstar Billy Graham. Counsel for Mushnick and the Post, though, called this out in a series of letters back and forth with WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt, which seemingly put a stop to the “Now, It’s Our Turn” series after one installment. In addition, WWE subpoenaed Dave Meltzer, even trying to force him to reveal sources, but he got out of the subpoena via California’s journalist shield law. In time, though, the defense became frustrated with WWE’s attempts to stonewall producing documents themselves.
This all built up to, in the immediate aftermath of McMahon and WWE being indicted on federal steroid distribution and conspiracy charges, McDevitt trying to get a stay issued to pause the discovery process in both the Mushnick and Rivera lawsuits. As McDevitt outlined in his motion for the stay and an attached sworn affidavit, they were arguing that, with some of the subject matter overlapping, it would be a violation of McMahon and WWE’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to force them to comply with discovery in those two lawsuits. It didn’t work, but in the process, McDevitt went off on wrestling media with a palpable level of vitriol.
On January 5, 1992, Graham and Shults then appeared on a radio show called Pro Wrestling Spotlight moderated by one John Arezzi. Arezzi has no known job and was a member of the so-called "wrestling media," a group of people relied upon by Mushnick in a form of "lowest-common-denominator" journalism. These members of the "wrestling media" generally have no real assets, no regular job and literally spend their lives searching for and printing any rumor, gossip or dirt about wrestling they can find. Throughout the scandal, Mushnick would wait until something was said by the "wrestling media" and he would then reprint it.
There it is in black and white: “These members of the ‘wrestling media’ generally have no real assets, no regular job and literally spend their lives searching for and printing any rumor, gossip or dirt about wrestling they can find.” Then, as is surely still the case now, that’s what WWE thought of wrestling media. Later, McDevitt continues with that tone in addressing the wrestling media, particularly when bringing up the episode of The Phil Donahue Show that covered the Titangate scandals:
On Monday, March 16, 1992, Mr. McMahon appeared on the Phil Donahue Show to try once again to defend his company against the tabloid onslaught. He alone was there to defend the company, and seven attackers were brought onto the show. Two of the attackers, John Arezzi and Dave Meltzer, were members of the "wrestling media." Neither has ever claimed to have personal knowledge of anything. One of the new accusers was some guy named Tom Hankins. Meltzer had unearthed Hankins a few days before and brought him along.
If you read the whole affidavit, you can see that McDevitt, besides referring to wrestling media as jobless fanboys and “attackers” who “unearthed” “some guy” by putting a journeyman wrestler in touch with the Donahue producers, took other shots as wrestling media. Most notably, he tried to theorize that the wrestling media were somehow involved in a grand conspiracy. But the key part is the first one that I included above: “These members of the ‘wrestling media’ generally have no real assets, no regular job and literally spend their lives searching for and printing any rumor, gossip or dirt about wrestling they can find.”
A few months earlier, during Mushnick’s September 13, 1993 deposition, McDevitt went down a similar path. (I’m not linking the original document but it would require a lot of redactions, but it’s the same deposition that I relied on for parts of my heavily lawyered article about the ring boy abuse scandal for Business Insider.) Specifically, he attacked Arezzi in the way he asked Mushnick about him:
Q. You think Mr. Arezzi is a journalist?
A. I think in that capacity at that time he served as a good journalist, yes.
Q. Did you ever read his what's called in the trade "dirt sheets"?
Mushnick lawyer Mark Jackson: Objection as to form. Do you know what he's referring to?
A. He writes about wresting.
Q. Did you ever read his publication?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever see where he was continually begging for money?
Jackson: Objection as to form.
A. I know he operated as essentially a broke guy. He was pretty fiat broke. I know that.
Q. He didn't have two nickels to mb together, did he?
Jackson: Objection as to form.
Q. Did you know that?
A. It doesn't surprise me. I know he was hurting for money, but that doesn't make him a dishonest guy.
Q. What was his regular job? Did he goto work anywhere?
A. I don't know.
Q. It’s your understanding he used to have ) time on a radio show?
A. It’s my understanding he bought time on a radio station and tried to sell that time.
Q. Do you know where he got the money to ) buy that time?
A. No.
If you’re wrestling media, how they tried to smear Arezzi and others here is how they think of you: As a bunch of broke fanboy rumor mongers with no lives. Keep that in mind the next time you volunteer to kiss the ring.