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YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT I JUST HEARD!

I am hearing WWE will be sold to the Saudis!

I am hearing that CM Punk got Colt Cabana fired!

I am hearing AEW will get a new TV deal worth more than a billion dollars!

I am hearing that a lot of people in the AEW locker room are really upset with what will be said in the ESPN interview coming out on Friday!

These are just a few of the non-stories that have been reported recently by various members of the wrestling media.  Obviously, there was nothing to the first three stories and while I am sure there are some people in the AEW locker room who were upset that CM Punk was interviewed by ESPN (hence their refusal to comment for the piece), is that really a news story?  Guys that don’t like each other still don’t like each other? STOP THE PRESSES!

As these kinds of reports (I can’t call them stories because that would be giving them too much credit) keep finding their way into the wrestling universe, WWE and otherwise, being the curious type that I am, I started wondering why they happen in the first place.  What are the motivations of people who release these kinds of reports?  

The most innocent reason is that mistakes happen.  No one is perfect, not even Mike Johnson and certainly not me.  Every credible outlet that reports something erroneous will then do a mea culpa, and they will do it in an upfront way.  They won’t bury it in a backdated article or do a “Yeah, but” to try and minimize their mistake.  They will own it.  So, why else does it happen?

Obviously, one major reason people do it is to get clicks on their website, podcast, whatever.  If I am being honest, in this specific instance you could make the case that I am doing the same thing here with my headline and I would not argue with you.  But, I could at least make the argument that the subject matter of that the headline was covered in the story in a factual way.  In the case of the first three items above, that clearly was not the case as all three of them were not true in any way, shape or form.  As bad as clickbaiting is, to me the bigger issue is the agenda of the reporter, and that leads to the ESPN story.

Obviously, we all have our likes and dislikes.  We are all human.  I think The Bloodline storyline is the best creative in wrestling while you may feel it’s The BCC vs. The Elite.  From an opinion standpoint there’s no right or wrong there.  But from a business standpoint?  You can’t make the argument that the latter is better when the numbers tell the accurate story.  To say that BCC-Elite is the best from a business standpoint is a lie.  Period.

I think we are at a point in time where too many reporters are letting what they personally like affect what they “report”.  Full disclosure, I prefer watching CM Punk over The Elite.  With that said, I would never, ever sit here and act as if Punk wasn’t 100 percent completely out of line for blowing up at the press conference the way he did.  He was 100 percent in the wrong for doing what he did, when he did it.  The problem I see is that people who prefer The Elite to Punk don’t tell the whole story, such as someone feeding fake news to gullible sources that even Hangman Page believed and that precipitated the blow up, putting the blame on everyone and telling the story.  When that doesn’t happen, biased headlines come to pass.  

As I said above, of course Hangman Page, The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega weren’t happy Punk got interviewed.  They said no comment when asked to speak for the piece.  But is them being unhappy really a story?  Especially when the actually story would make it clear that they wouldn’t comment and hence weren’t happy about it?

I have been sent clips of some reporters saying, “The locker room doesn’t want Punk back”.  That led to AEW wrestlers publicly stating that they like Punk.  Then the narrative turned into, “The top talent doesn’t want Punk back”.  That led to top wrestlers saying that they do want him back.  Today, I was sent a clip where one person who stated that fourth item above defended his statement, even though he acknowledged that he didn’t know what Punk actually said.  He also said, and I quote, “Everyone loves the Bucks” in AEW.  

Just like no one wanted Punk was a false statement, so was saying everyone in AEW loves The Bucks.  Any reporter with sources knows at least one AEW wrestler who does not love The Bucks.  When that kind of bias is shown it galls me, not because it’s completely unprofessional (which it is of course), but because it’s clear as day what the intention of the person making the statement is.  In the case of a statement like these, I also question why they were made in the first place?  They aren’t true, so what’s the end goal?  Is it to keep a source happy?  Is it to smear someone that the reporter doesn’t like?  Is it both?  Whatever the case, they say what they say and the repeater site runs with since they can cite the original source, no matter how incorrect that source is, and get some clicks.  And then, the muck is primed to be raked.

Now obviously I will look at this situation much differently than most people.  For the average fan, they read the rumors and either laugh at their audacity or blindly believe them until they are proven false. Hell, there are people in my profession that do the latter.  But for someone like me, who takes what we do here very seriously, facts matter.  Truth matters.  Fairness matters.  Multiply sourcing a story matters,  In every report listed about above, at least one of the those items were violated.  People who do this job have a duty to the consumer to do everything within our power to confirm news before we report it as such.  My hope is that the people in my industry that aren’t doing that now will have a change of heart and set their standards higher.  If that happens, I can’t wait to do my next “you’ll never believe what I heard” op-ed.

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