After experiencing severe health problems that nearly cost him his life, Dutch Mantell is back and on the mend. Recently, Mantell’s wife was also admitted to the hospital due to a potentially fatal disease.
James Romero and Dutch discussed Dave Meltzer’s latest article on him in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter on the “Storytime with Dutch Mantell” YouTube channel:
“Meltzer writes that you and your wife weren’t doing well. There was a Go Fund Me out. I’ll quote this here. ‘They had raised $64,200 with most of their care’, full stop. Then, just aside from the fact that he’s already spelled your name wrong, and then he’s just inserted a sentence, he then goes to, ‘They had raised $64,200 with most of the top donors being anonymous, and the largest known donors were Tony Khan, $5,000 and Chris Jericho at $1,500.’ No mention of many anonymous people. No mention of Jim Cornette who donated $5,000. No mention of the anonymous person who donated $5500. So that being said, ‘With Khan, many pointed out that Mantell was a podcaster who was brutal to Khan, even being critical of him when the promotion was at its peak popularity, or popularity peak, and recently criticized him for the contract term Swerve Strickland got in his recent deal. It’s something when a former wrestler gets mad at a promoter who clearly can afford it for what he pays the top talent, and he was doing it after he knew the new deal was put together that was going to make the company exceedingly profitable. Wrestlers using the old school, he doesn’t draw money. and not understanding that this isn’t a mom and pop week to week business based on live event numbers, but one that is in a worst case scenario year would generate 250 million dollars next year, and that most of that revenue is guaranteed ahead of time.’”
“It’s difficult reading that out loud. So basically, what he’s done is, and I’ve said this on a video on WSI as well that a lot of people watch, basically has Meltzer has turned the milk of human kindness of 2000 people donating and basically turned it into a hit piece on you because you have been critical about AEW booking in the past.
Dutch Mantell responded:
“Well, I try not to give anything Dave Meltzer writes any believability or credence, but that kind of pissed me off because all of a sudden, I think this speaks more of Tony Khan’s humanity than it says anything about me. Even though, yeah, I have been critical of him, but isn’t that my job to go on here and talk about the business? Yes, I have said that he needs more story, and he just doesn’t need to put matches together and have them go 15 minutes for no apparent reason other than they’re going to have a good match. I mean, I’ve seen acrobatics and I’ve seen gymnastics. I’ve seen the greatest moves in the world. Everybody has if you watch enough wrestling on TV, but tell me a story. So I’m doing my job, but he’s saying, ‘Oh, I blasted him.’ I think it says much more about Tony Khan than it does about me, really, because it’s like, how many people has Dave Meltzer knocked? You can knock me, Dave, but you’re knocking my family now, and that is a no-no almost in any business. I almost died. My wife almost died, but yet you, to make a point that you don’t like me, you gotta come out and you gotta blast me for that?
“So, yes, I did say not flattering things about Tony Khan, but Meltzer, you’ve done a lot worse because you’ve had your thing going a lot longer than I have, and I was just basically doing my job. So he pisses me off. I can’t quite get my thoughts together. I’m still recovering from what he said. I would like to walk up on him. I can’t now. I’m too old now, but I would just like to walk up on Meltzer and just slap the dog sh*t out of him, really, because some things deserve a good, hard slapping. Not a punch, but a slapping.”
“I’ve read some of Meltzer’s stuff. Yeah, I could knock that too, but, and I’ve always said he is a good writer. He’s a prolific writer, but he just writes too much, and he goes on and on and on and on. I don’t even know why people even pay attention to him anymore, but I don’t even know why he had to get that in there, unless, you said he had a score to settle with me, and what was that score? He’s pissed at me, and he’s been pissed for like, five years. He was printing a bunch of misinformation, and when I tried to correct him, oh, he wasn’t going to do that. I did this on Twitter when it was still Twitter, and all of a sudden, you know, I blasted him a couple of times on there, and people were reading it, and he just blocked me out of the clear blue, and I’ve never heard another word from him. Now that’s a chicken sh*t way to do it. If he wants to defend himself, defend yourself, Dave, but I think he told somebody, ‘He was clogging up my Twitter.’ No, I was telling the truth, and you didn’t want people to know it.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
