Dave Meltzer is obtuse about the difference between character and real person

Matt Hardy yesterday on twitter wrote, “If you asked for a refund in Fort Wayne (Friday night TNA house show) cuz I wasn’t there, tweet me your story & I will RT is..And I think you from the bottom of my heart.”  He also wrote, “I thank those peeps who stood up for me.   I haven’t done anything wrong.”  Oh boy.  Abyss responded on twitter saying “Our roster of talent is the best and brings everything they have to the ring every night and our Impact live vents give the fans a lot for their money. No refunds required or requested.  Thanks for being great fans no matter whos on the show.  You guys are the best.”  Great a monster heel.

-Dave Meltzer, from the Wrestling Observer news update, 6/26/11

  1. Let’s forget about all the Matt Hardy stuff. He’s silly and not worth talking about. Maybe anything on Twitter isn’t, but let’s move on.
  2. Pro wrestling is weird. The division between character and performer isn’t as clear cut as it would be for Robert De Niro and Travis Bickle, let’s say. Bret Hart is Bret Hart. John Cena is John Cena. Abyss is actually someone else, but almost no one knows his real name or the real person. Abyss is a wrestling character, but when someone walks up to him on the street, he’s still Abyss, even though that’s not really him.
  3. Most wrestlers aren’t seriously maintaining kayfabe on Twitter; to do so would kind of being insulting to the audience of Twitter, which expects authenticity (unless you are a parody or joke account). But it’s generally the real person’s thoughts and feelings. We’ve all basically come to except this. We’re all pretty much grown-ups there. We can separate real and fake pretty well.
  4. Does any functioning adult seriously Abyss sending a nice, supportive message to the fans on Twitter really undermines his ability to be monster? Does any non-curmudgeon come across this message and go: “Wow, I used to think he was nuts, but now I see him being all rational on the Twitter.”
  5. Is he even really that character any more? No one older than 11 has been genuinely scared of Abyss. Pro wrestling kind of sucks at creating monsters now. There’s a lot of reasons for that (maybe even a tiny bit the loss of mystique because of things like Twitter), but that’s just the game now.