Gentlemen's Wrestling Podcast #130: The Downfall of F4W/WON
🎧 Listen to the full episode on Voices of Wrestling
F4W/WON Business Strategy
Everything you see from that site, to me, speaks to people that want to build retirement funds and cash out now. They're not worried about building a devoted, somewhat niche audience that can sustain for years and years to come.
F4W/WON Monetization
Brian has his Twitter subscription for five bucks a month where he will give you his live thoughts on shows, exclusive news tidbits, and the ability to ask him questions. This is again things you used to get for free. It seems insane to me.
F4W/WON Website Critique
It doesn't offer a whole lot besides the newsletter at this point. It should be the one-stop shop for hardcore pro wrestling fandom, and instead, it feels way too similar to every other wrestling news website out there.
The container that holds all of it has changed to what you've said, which is it is almost at this point indistinguishable from nine other SEO slop major wrestling websites.
Brian Alvarez
Whenever I see Brian's content these days, he just seems like someone that doesn't care about wrestling. He's exhausted by this having been his job for years and years and years, and he's totally burnt out.
Brian for years now has largely functioned as an empty vessel. His job is to say 'Take us through the show, Dave,' to speed him up when he is only three-quarters away through the topics, and to try and shut the show as quickly as possible.
Dave Meltzer's Management
I think the wrestling world is worse off by Dave not being concerned about anything else going on with his site or Observer brands, because I think it has so much potential to be a place that is the absolute pinnacle of wrestling analysis.
I think the direction of the website has never been dictated by Dave since for 30 years. In fact, there's been a couple times where Dave would be like, 'Why isn't this guy banned?' and no one will ban him.
Dave Meltzer's Analysis
I think Dave is very afraid of being left behind. I think that's one of Dave's worst fears is becoming one of those people who gets stuck to certain ideas that work for them. I think he overcorrects on the other end where anything that's successful now, well, that must mean it's good.
Wrestling Journalism Standards
I don't read a record review of an old Bob Dylan album or Nirvana album and have to read four paragraphs about how he changed this hook and it might have sold more copies. I want to know what your opinion of this is as a piece of work.