Shining Wiz

If it's just Jericho saying it, I wouldn't put too much weight in it.

Interesting. Hadn’t heard that at all. Think there’s any meat to the rumours?

Yup. Loved that show.

No Omega, Ibushi, Bullet Club, big name guests or Tanahashi this morning.....and that was probably the best NJPW show of the year.

It's pretty common in these situations to use a fake name, even if it's one created by the writer. "Jenna (not her real name)" or something. It protects the person's identity without stripping their humanity. The issue here - or at least what I was talking about - was the lack of anonymity in this case. Apparently her real first name/what she goes by actually is Mo, so even that was out there already. Just calling her Mo would have worked I assume, though I don’t think Meltzer ever uses first names only. Besides the point though...just another case of someone looking bad in a situation where everyone involved already does.

He referred to her twitter handle, then referred to her as the woman thereafter, since he either didn’t know/didn’t want to use her name. What should he have referred to her as? Not being confrontational, just an actual question. I could see calling her the alleged victim or accuser if the story was about the assault, but Elgin hasn’t been accused of any assault, so I can see trying to avoid confusion on that front.

I see the argument, but:1. It's not a regular occurrence, but you do see profiles of rape survivors that use a photo but not the real name from time to time. 2. Your argument is not Dave's Twitter argument, which was, approximately, that the lawsuit being a defamation case made it a separate issue. Or something like that. But that's not even in the same universe as the AP standard that everyone uses these days. Now, if someone is kidnapped and named in the media, only for it to come out via the criminal case after a rescue that he or she was also raped, that's considered a legitimate exception. The name goes public in the news in legitimate fashion and it becomes unavoidable to discuss plausibly. But if a woman accuses a man of sexual assault and another of covering it up, and the latter sues her for defamation, you still don't run her name without consent. This is well established journalistic ethics. Hell, in 2018 it's probably discussed more online than all but a few topics in that realm, with the mass accepted practice being well known. Meltzer’s argument may be the wrong one, but that doesn’t change my point. And this isn’t someone who happens to have a profile pic, but anonymous otherwise. This is a person who makes no attempt to be anonymous, save for the twitter handle, and openly discussed with people figuring out her real name and Facebook page (which I have not seen, but I assume discipusses these issues openly as well?), not having a problem with that at the time, AND being upset with Meltzer referring to her as “the woman” in previous ‘reports’. I’m not saying Meltzer handled this correctly at all, but it’s not like he outed a totally anonymous victim here, regardless of the whether his stated reasons are the right ones or not.

When the victim is openly discussing the issue on their personal twitter, which includes multiple pictures of themselves, albeit under an alias but with no real attempt to hide their identity, doesn't the "don't name the victim" deal go out the window. If someone were to do a televised interview, making no effort to hide their identity other than using their twitter handle, and the only legal proceedings are between the alleged victim and a 3rd party, I can't imagine too many news organizations would have a major issue in using their legal name when reporting on it. Meltzer may have many issues, and many of them involving his attitude towards women, but this specific one may be a bit overblown.

Tana is back already because the movie he was working on is done filming. It's almost like his knee wasn't that injured.........

Whole heartedly disagree on the first point, but agree to a certain extent on the second. Not so much on the crowd being dead for the early part of matches, but I do agree that expectation that the match isn't going to end before 20 minutes in does take some of the excitement out of early matches. Of course, Okada 'outlasting' opponents has kind of been the theme of his run, so it plays in to an extent, but still. Connected with that, main events need to finish with something other than finishers every once in a while. It doesn't hurt my enjoyment the way things are currently structured, but I think a few surprises are always a good thing.

Meltzer is, at best, an ok reporter. He is generally a pretty bad writer (read any Observer), but is ok when professionally edited (see MMAfighting). He's painful to listen to on the radio with his verbal ticks (listen to any radio/pod appearance ever). However, being an "ok reporter" puts you at the pinnacle of wrestling 'journalism'. He has no actual competition, and certainly had none 30-35 years ago when he started writing the Observer. So he's used to being the unquestioned 'authority', and he's a 60 year old dude who has spent his entire adult life obsessing over pro wrestling. The fact he can actually tweet is kind of amazing; the fact he tweets to troll trolls is kind of sad. As for the Elgin deal - I don't think his actual coverage has been that bad all things considered, but linking that tumblr account was just plain stupidity. As for the coverage, he's a wrestling reporter. He reported on the wrestling aspect of it, reprinted the 'press release' from the wrestler in question, and pointed out that he was dumb and handled things badly. People seem hung up on the idea that he never contacted Mo or whatever her name is, but she had put out some pretty detailed tweets, so I'm not sure what the point would be, especially when Meltzer clearly considered it a minor story considering the placement in the Observer and the parties involved. Moral of the story - a pro wrestling 'journalist' is probably not the person best equipped to do some hard hitting journalism on sexual assault issues, and expecting him to be able to do that well is kind of a silly expectation.

WK wasn’t about Naito failing, it was about Okada succeeding. The entire main event scene since his return has been all about Okada, and how everyone else serves his story.

Juice isn't quite at that level, so I can see him getting a place holder defence maybe. As for Ibushi, he's tied up in the Golden Lovers/BC issue, plus without a contract, I can't see them putting a title as big as the IC on him. Probably jinxing us by saying this, but the SG shenanigans have been limited in 2017 so far, particularly in the Tana match up. I'd prefer them be gone altogether, but as long as they are minimized that's a good thing.

I was underwhelmed with Suzuki as a title challenger coming off a loss, and even though the Goto match was fantastic, his 2017 NEVER run was bad enough that I thought he might be toast as a top level performer. After that match though, I'm very curious to see how this run goes. Presumably Tana returns from injury and avenges the loss, but it's not impossible that Suzuki drops the title to someone in the meantime. All in all, the New Beginnings so far have been an interesting reshuffling of the decks in the upper card.

If Rey is part time and able to avoid testing, he should be able to look that good - aesthetically and athletically - for a good while. I parachuted into WWE watching just for the Rumble and thought he was a highlight, along with Baylor being more Devitt than Demon, and Nakamura looking like he was interested in making a big impression. I thought the women’s Rumble was fun, if pretty sloppy in places, but if they’re going to do them every year, they need to up the size of the active roster as the 50% nostalgia/legend component will only play well for so long.