Why wrestling opinions from those reporting on the business are fueling wrestling tribalism

Last weekend, Dave Meltzer gave his opinion on why he thought WWE counterprograms AEW so aggressively, and it didn’t take two minutes for the whole anti-WWE section of the IWC to jump on this as if it were 100% true and use it to rant about how WWE is evil for wanting AEW to close and wanting to take the bargaining power away from the wrestlers.

So, by giving such a biased opinion about the situation between WWE and AEW and having wrestling sites treat it as news, it feeds the tribalism, and the ugly side of the wrestling fandom comes out.

By the way, I’m not saying that there isn’t any truth to what Meltzer said about this situation, but like him, I don’t work in WWE’s offices, so everything is pure speculation at this point.

The thing is, we’re not in the ’90s when you had a real war between WWE and WCW. Things have changed, and let’s be real here. Do you really think that the fact that AEW exists is a real positive for a guy like Otis and Tozawa or any of the other lower-midcard to midcard guys? Not really, because WWE isn’t going to give them more money just because they bring up that they got a better offer from AEW. All they’re going to say is, “Thanks for your service,” and let them go take AEW’s offer. Just look at what they did with The New Day and Sheamus as examples. So, if they can do that to those guys, imagine what they can do to guys lower on the card.

So, I really doubt that WWE is counterprogramming AEW to hurt them. I just think they are thinking that they can give their fans another option, which makes sense because they realize that a good portion of their fans aren’t necessarily AEW fans, and the same goes for AEW fans. So why not give their fans something to watch? It makes sense.

Another thing that came out last week was the whole Conrad Thompson situation involving Roman Reigns, and again, the buzzards came out in full force to defend Roman Reigns and demonize Conrad for what he said. Personally, I don’t agree with his opinion on Reigns, as there have been so many guys who were more overrated than Reigns, in my opinion. Diesel comes to mind as somebody who was more overrated than Reigns as WWE Champion. But in the end, this became a big thing when it shouldn’t have been.

Finally, there’s Chris Jericho. He gave an interview last week, and the one quote that got a lot of traction was when he said that AEW doesn’t concern itself with WWE and only focuses on its own product. Once again, this opened the gate wide open for the anti-AEW section of the IWC to jump on this and take him to task over it. We all know why Chris said this, and it was a smart move on his part because it made fans talk about AEW. But at the same time, it brought more negativity into a very negative fandom.

In the end, I know there will always be some form of tribalism in the wrestling fandom, but I feel like those reporting on it have the power to help put a stop to this, or at least slow it down. If somebody like Meltzer gives an opinion on something, maybe stop reporting it as news. This would help prevent feeding the tribalism, and it would make the fandom better in the end.

Tribalism is the reason why newer fans are scared of becoming fans in the first place. I feel like there’s so much product to choose from that we don’t need to attack each other for liking one product over another. If you like WWE, enjoy that product and stop crapping on those who don’t like it. The same goes for AEW fans.

In the end, wrestling should be enjoyed by fans and not taken as seriously as some fans take it. That is the responsibility of those in a position to report the news, to do something about it, but it’s also on us as fans to stop taking this so seriously and just enjoy the show.