Bix & Lanza's Marathon Media Meltdown

Between The Sheets

After trying for weeks to figure out when to do this, we found the time and here it is: David Bixenspan is joined by Joe Lanza of The Flagship Wrestling Podcast to talk about...well...everything that's been frustrating about the wrestling media landscape of late, some of which came to a head again this past week. Topics of discussion include:

• WWE feeding AEW weekend "fast national" ratings to various people in wrestling media, most recently with the fake data point that the July 6 episode of Collision did a zero rating in the 18-34 demographic. Including what "fast nationals" actually are.
• The increasingly frequent occurrence of running WWE PR plants without attribution and why/how this shouldn't even be happening.
• How many of the people talking about Nielsen ratings understand they're a statistical sample and not magically calculating everyone who's watching?
• What exactly is WWE's end game with the fast nationals grift, and is it working?
• All of the many problems with WWE's post-show press conferences, most recently exemplified by online reactions to John Pollock and Brandon Thurston's questions at the Money in the Bank presser in Toronto.
• Exactly why their questions were fine by any metric.
• Why there is no other time or place for those questions.
• Why does WWE even bother with the facade?
• The actual reasons why wrestling media don't break most of the more "serious" stories related to WWE.
• The various lawsuit threats that David has gotten, including after #SpeakingOut happened.
• How David factored Deadspin indemnifying him against legal action and legal fees factored into his process.
• Are there people we DON'T want covering more difficult stories in the first place?
• Has Dave Meltzer's handling of some topics set the wrong tone? Has Dave's continued commitment to covering EVERYTHING spread him too thin?
• Why AEW banning Ringside News from its media events is Actually Good.

...and much more. Maybe this is a one-off. Maybe this will eventually happen again. Who knows? Enjoy!

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