Threats and Violence against Meltzer

Hi Scott,

I’m really enjoying the Observer Flashbacks series, but reading through them has repeatedly raised a question for me.

Given the implied mob-like mentality throughout the territories, the stories of threats on wrestlers, the level of protectiveness still around the business at the time, the alleged corruption, and general closed-door carniness of the whole setup, how did Dave Meltzer not end up taking a beating from someone?

With his general snarkiness, it seems like he would never have been able to step outside his front door, never mind show his face at wrestling shows. Even if no-one went through with it, he must have surely faced threats of violence etc.?

​Yeah, in one of the 88 issues he relates a story about how he was going to go a backstage meet-and-greet at an NWA show and was paranoid about a news story with his face popping up on the TV​ because then people would know who he was and probably beat on him. By the same token, he had as many people inside the industry feeding him info as he did people threatening him because he was already friends with a lot of guys inside the industry. Plus it wasn’t until the 90s when he would do TV appearances and such that anyone really even knew what he looked like. Plus, and I know this comes as a shock, but wrestlers are mostly full of shit, especially if they’re telling stories about who is going to beat up who.