August 15, 201312 yr comment_5556550 I'm honestly more concerned about the fate of those wrestling magazines in the shed Yeah I don't know what the flooding situation would be in his area but if a really strong storm hits all those newsletters in this garage are screwed.
August 15, 201312 yr comment_5556568 The newsletters in general are okay: * people already have every WON that was published * Wade has all the Torch's with the exception of a few earlier ones * People have all of the Mat Results with the exception of the first 6-7 The Mat Results would be of some modest interest since they pre-date the WON by a year, but they're strictly results and a lot of the has been compiled on line. There also is the problem in they were printed... seemed like that old blue-ink mimeograph method like when we were kids in school in the 70s and early 80s before wide spread photocopiers. Anyway, that stuff faded. I think I borrowed Roland Messier's originals between lucha shows at the Sports Arena, and those ones were really brutal to copy. This was in the 1992-93 range, a decade after they were printed. Add in another 20 years... I can't imagine what the originals would be like. Anyway, they're of very limited value. * Japanese Wrestling Journal We have these from roughly issue 47 or 49... can't remember which. It was early-mid 1987ish, with 1-2 issues right after that also missing. Issues 1-46 or so would be GOLD to find, because they're not just AJPW/NJPW results card by card, but also the writer's comments on the matches he saw, etc. However, I got these from Zavisa back when I was buds with Dave, and pointed out the missing issues wondering if he had them. He said he didn't, and actually pointed me to Tenay as a longtime JWJ sub. My recollection is that Mike didn't have them either, and that everyone in the US that still had them didn't go any further back. So I wouldn't hold out hope. The one person who might have had some was the second editor of Mat Results as it was clear he got them, used them for results, and for news on occasion that wasn't exactly how Dave wrote something up. But while I recall he showed up online in the early 00's, I also seem to recall he passed away in the mid-to-late 00's. Clausen? Anyway... beyond that, there's not a ton of "newsletters" that would be of value that Dave has. Perhaps he has Dobratz stuff from the 70s, but I don't that. There was a time when Dave didn't even have copies of his own newsletters from 83-86 or so. I seem to recall someone made him a set of those at some point... and no, it wasn't me. I think was Dylan is talking about are any Magazines that he has.
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556570 Yes the magazines concern me because supposedly PWI themselves don't have an actual archive
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556590 Yes the magazines concern me because supposedly PWI themselves don't have an actual archiveYou sure? When they reprinted the debut issue several years ago, it looked perfect.
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556594 Yes the magazines concern me because supposedly PWI themselves don't have an actual archiveYou sure? When they reprinted the debut issue several years ago, it looked perfect. I know they have a photo archive of sorts that is pretty solid. Without betraying any confidences I can't say a ton, other than the fact that multiple sources unrelated to each other have told me they don't have a true, working archive of the magazines. Also worth noting that Dave likely has some other non-Apter mag mags in those boxes that would be even harder to come by
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556597 It's interesting this is being talked about. I actually sent Dave an email this morning about said subject. I'll let everyone know his response when I get it.
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556624 If PWI doesn't have a complete collection, I at least know someone does because I had the complete originals from September 1979 to December 2000 with every off beat special issue in between that I sold a little over a year ago. Same with the Torch. I had a few from 89 and everything from January 1990 to December 2001. It started in October of 1987 and I never could find anything earlier. I would love to go through all of that mess Dave calls a collection just to organize and see if he does indeed have full collections of certain magazines/collections.
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556642 I imagine I live closest to Dave out of anybody here. Now that I have a house with plenty of garage space I'd be more than willing to truck a whole mess of stuff back here. That is if he ends up wanting someone to deal with any of it. Just throwing my participation hat in the ring.
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556649 Dave Meltzer's edition of Cribs/Hoarders: This is nuts. Dave should really have a lot of this in a professional storage facility, or loan it to the pro wrestling hof. Was this taped when the guy was doing the NY times piece?
August 16, 201312 yr Author comment_5556660 Could someone here who knows Dave well discuss this with him so he takes any requests seriously?
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556664 I actually have all the PWIs and the Wrestler, Sports Review Wrestling and Inside Wrestling issues from 1979-1990. I was wondering if there was someway to post the them online or something so people can see them. I just have no clue as to how to do something like that.
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556665 That would be a shit-ton of work! Figure on a scan taking 1 minute per page. I have about 400 Apter mags and had this grand idea of scanning each page and creating PDFs of each issue. Made one and decided it's not worth the time .
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556666 What would be great is if you can somehow archive them all like the Sports Illustrated Vault or Time Magazine vault and just be able to read them online. Or an app like how you read magazines and newspapers on your iPads or tablets. Again I suck with technology and have zero clue if this can anyway be done at all.
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556667 Oh yeah it can absolutely be done with a massive time commitment. Would take about an hour per issue operating at top efficiency. There's no way to avoid all the manual labor. Then when it's done and distributed for free, you'll have hundreds of "armchair experts" coming out of the woodwork to nitpick and complain about the finished product.
August 16, 201312 yr Author comment_5556673 Let's talk about this on the other side. I started a topic about it.
August 16, 201312 yr comment_5556677 Oh yeah it can absolutely be done with a massive time commitment. Would take about an hour per issue operating at top efficiency. There's no way to avoid all the manual labor. Then when it's done and distributed for free, you'll have hundreds of "armchair experts" coming out of the woodwork to nitpick and complain about the finished product. FWIW, if something like this ever did seriously get going, I have most of the 70's Apter mags that I would look at contributing to the project as well.
August 17, 201312 yr comment_5556756 Oh yeah it can absolutely be done with a massive time commitment. Would take about an hour per issue operating at top efficiency. There's no way to avoid all the manual labor. Then when it's done and distributed for free, you'll have hundreds of "armchair experts" coming out of the woodwork to nitpick and complain about the finished product. FWIW, if something like this ever did seriously get going, I have most of the 70's Apter mags that I would look at contributing to the project as well. I think you could hire people to do much of the grunt work. I would contribute $100 or so to such a project...
August 17, 201312 yr comment_5556833 I think you could hire people to do much of the grunt work. I would contribute $100 or so to such a project...There are companies that do it extremely quickly, including some that use some magic sort of 3D scanning so they don't even have to flick through the pages. I'm associated with a charity looking at digitising its library (13,000 books) and that's one of the options we're looking at because many of the books are old and possibly the only extant copies and so the customary destructive scanning (breaking the spine to speed up the process) isn't an option. It's unfortunate that we've only just started sourcing quotes, otherwise this post could've been a little bit more helpful by giving an indication of the potential cost.
August 18, 201312 yr comment_5556952 What is the last big wrestling show Dave appeared at in person? He seems all over UFC shows but not so much for wrestling. I feel like he should at least be showing up at WrestleMania.
August 19, 201312 yr comment_5557179 He went to some indy show with Bret Hart on it a couple months ago didn't he? I remember him talking about it on one of the Observer show.
August 19, 201312 yr comment_5557180 What's the last 'Mania Dave went to? Did he go to the one in LA (21?)?
August 19, 201312 yr comment_5557182 Dave said it was hard for him to do ratings when he went to live shows (something he doesn't have to worry about with UFC shows) and it was easier to watch it on his TV and get his work done than flying out to the PPV. This was his response on a random podcast but it sounded like a reasonable explanation.
August 19, 201312 yr comment_5557184 I think it mostly boils down to the fact that UFC credentials Dave and sets him up on press row. WWE doesn't do this. The one and only WM Dave has seen live is 12.
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