5 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (August 17)

Wrestling Twitter, much like all of Twitter, is a swamp. It is an indictment of mankind and an advertisement for a dictatorship. We all have a voice. Not all of us should have a voice.

It is a swamp populated by ill-advised wrestlers and fans alike. Lance Storm's eulogy to Brian 'Grandmaster Sexay' Christopher focused not on the sadness of his final years, but the coincidence that he entered WWE as Brian exited, and exited as Brian returned. Who woulda thought?! Who woulda thought that a tribute tweet should include some nice words about the recently bloody deceased?

He actually sent condolences to Jim Neidhart's loved ones, instead of: "Fun fact: Jim Neidhart died a fake Canadian". He didn't send condolences to Brian's family because he "didn't know him", and thus felt little empathy towards him. And that's the problem: so many users of the platform don't take into consideration that there are actual human beings sat behind the computer.

We're not meant to read the thoughts of total strangers, or at least, we're not ready to. It is warping our psyches to a point that when we individually pile on those who make a faux pas, of which everybody is capable, the backlash is completely disproportionate, and we in turn become the monster. Nobody emerges from the swamp with any credibility, except perhaps Tommaso Ciampa, who is ace at it.

And, on Thursday, we were all sucked into it once more...

On a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer botched massively, docking his credibility a quarter star at least.

Aiming his fire at WWE's cosmetic treatment of women, he turned his weapon onto himself: Peyton Royce looked better in NXT, he said, when she was "lighter". This seemed to imply that he isn't a fan of her breast augmentation, but was interpreted as fat shaming, given that the audio clip shared was stripped of context (that hardly helped his cause to begin with). What a woman does with her body is none of his business, and after one terrible apology - "I still would", he more or less said - he since seems to have recognised the upset he caused, as well as the drastic health ramifications such critiques hold.

Peyton Royce was completely within her rights to express her disappointment at Meltzer. Whether or not he perceives Royce as unattractive or having looked better in the past is incidental to his insights as a wrestling journalist. He only added to - but has since apologised for - an unnecessary conversation.

But there is an army of teachers out there, and they detained him.

Renee Young leapt to her colleague's defence in such a way that it felt actually supportive. Drake Maverick meanwhile missed the point entirely, and rated her looks *****. Seth Rollins tweeted "-6 stars, Dave", which came across as less supportive, and more defensive; the guy who so obviously is indebted to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenny Omega has not reached their level of critical acclaim, which just might account for his reaction. Road Dogg responded to Rollins with a hearty "tweet of the day!" endorsement - the same Road Dogg who writes SmackDown and relegated one of the very best wrestlers on the planet in favour of one of the very worst. Which is Japanese, and which is an American blonde?

The rate at which this pile-on accumulated was...conspicuous. Though understandable, nice even, where is this backbone, this defiance, where it really matters?

Look who these performers are not even employed by, because that would force WWE would to classify them as human beings worthy of acceptable health insurance. Superficiality takes precedent over talent in WWE. It always has, irrespective of gender. With a searing hypocrisy, much of the WWE roster has taken a man who for years has championed genuine change in proportionate pay and unionisation and buried him in the desert.

They'll dance on his grave, too, but not the women. They're not allowed in Saudi Arabia.