Voices of Sanity on Dave Meltzer’s CHRIS & NANCY Review Blackout

I was clearly unfair in broad-brushing the Wrestling Observer discussion board as a Dave Meltzer echo chamber. The “Irv Muchnick on Big Dave” and “Irv Muchnick rips The board” threads include a couple of dissenting voices.

“kjharris” wrote that “it’s a little creepy and sad that Dave Meltzer hasn’t reviewed [CHRIS & NANCY]”:

“Chris Benoit’s double murder suicide was one of the biggest stories of the decade. For all Irv’s flaws in marketing the book on his blog, his book is the most well researched book on the subject. Dave has reviewed plenty of WWE DVDs that trifle in significance to the subjects raised in Irv’s book. He’s probably going to review Hulk Hogan’s latest work of fiction too. Pointing out the inaccuracies in WWE’s or Hulk Hogan’s latest versions of history makes for entertaining informative reading, but it’s like shooting fish from the barrel. Or should we just wait till the next wrestler death or seizure or drug test failure or arrest to bring up the drug problems that are still rampant within the industry? And the cycle continues…”

“DanNJ316” agreed:

“I haven’t read Muchnick’s book, so I can’t comment on it. But if Dave feels that there are inaccuracies in the book, then I’d like to hear about them from him. Let’s get everything out in the open. We’re not talking about who’s main eventing Wrestlemania here, we’re talking about arguably one of the biggest stories in wrestling’s history. To be honest, Dave is dropping the ball by choosing to ignore this book, and not doing a proper review of it. He reviews every other wrestling book that comes out. The fact that he wouldn’t review this book is pretty glaring.

“I understand his thought process about not wanting to get into a pissing contest with Muchnick, and whatever else. But this story isn’t about that, it’s so much bigger than that. Dave needs to put his personal issues with Muchnick aside, and do what needs to be done. Get the truth out there. What about Muchnick said in the book is true, what’s a lie, and then let the people decide what they want to believe. This is not a story that can just be swept under the carpet, and forgotten about.”

(One poster replied that Meltzer doesn’t review “every” wrestling book, but the basic point obtains.)

Irv Muchnick