Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

i'm not a big fan of insider news these days. in fact, i think anytime you have the opportunity to peek into a business, there's a lot of skeletons lying around that you don't want to see. the wrestling industry in particular is one of those places where peering in you get another dimension. it's the whole difference of eating and working at a place like KFC. you start hearing about how this person did drugs, or pooped in someone's purse as a prank and you lose respect for the wrestler as a person. i had my share of seeing the behind-the-scene horrors just in the Japanese female feds. it's partly why i don't go to shows anymore. once i learned how people really were backstage as well as the way this business was run, i wanted no part of it. you really don't want to know how a person obtains their spot in the business. most of the time it's just the same as how a person becomes a top level manager in a company. the story of climbing to the top never is pretty because there are always tons of casualties along the way. but that's the price of success. on the topic of insider news, i really think most of it is irrelevant and causes more harm than good. it used to be fun when you had the big rivalry between WWE and WCW on who would jump ship next. for myself though, much of the industry has become some crappy 3rd party news site trying to get to market first in re-publishing hotline info. worse yet, some information starts floating around on people's personal lives. yeah, being a celebrity entails that type of spotlight, but some people should show respect when it comes to their livelihoods. i really don't see how insider news helps the industry especially when it comes to spilling dirt. the situation with Kurt Angle, for instance, is stupid because people are taking bets on his death. why would anyone take bets on someone's death? that's just low class, but that's symptomatic of people who deem themselves "smart." the only useful things on the web are just results and spoilers. i don't mind spoilers so much because it gives me something to look forward to. however, i think reviews are more useful to the wrestling industry on a whole than plain insider knowledge (or false publications). a review basically discusses what happened in a historical manner that you can criticize more fairly. you are privileged in seeing the past and finding flaws or bright points with it. this essentially is feedback on how people feel about a product that hopefully the owners of these companies can reflect upon. this type of information, done through the right eyes, provide real value to the industry, rather than the color of someone's underwear or how much booze so-and-so drank at a party. the other thing is that the quality of the write up of a review is more important than just churning out news. it's the real difference maker for me compared to some overreactive, zit infected idiot creating spewage from his other hole.