With wrestling wrongly perceived to be in a boom period, mainstream periodicals and web sites have deigned to cover wrestling, and very badly. The dreck posted by Deadspin, Grantland, Rolling Stone, etc. is beyond bad, done by those with no legit education re: the biz and a desire to placate WWE, the only game in town.
For example: Kostya Kennedy’s piece in Sports Illustrated’s “Where Are They Now?” issue.
Kennedy has been on my radio show many times, and is an excellent journalist. If there’s a quintessential American sportswriter for the past 10-15 years, it may be him. His books on Joe DiMaggio and Pete Rose are not to be missed.
But Kennedy whiffed on his “state of fake wrestling” piece. He just regurgitated inaccuracies. Kennedy inexplicably spoke to a kayfabe Apter-mag hack, Stu Saks, but not Dave Meltzer, editor of wrestling’s publication of record. Bad start.
The main article’s accompanying pieces, updates on Tito Santana and Madusa, were similarly flawed, if only because both are alive, healthy and accomplished. But doing a story on a train wreck or corpse wouldn’t make WWE look good.
Make no mistake, that’s the purpose of such cross-promotion: For mainstream sports media entities to tie into a brand that’s on the rise. Jonathan Coachman, ex-WWE and now with ESPN, recently called for his current employer to be an on-site presence at next year’s (presumably) record-breaking WrestleMania at Dallas.
The problem is: WWE’s brand isn’t on the rise.
You’ve got to love this excerpt: “After five years, though, [Madusa] grew frustrated with WCW’s increasing preference for women who were more eye candy than athletes.” Hey, Deb…why did you get those breast implants again?
