Dirtsheets have spanned over 5 decades and it is still going strong to this very day and was given the name "Dirtsheets" to get "Inside dirt" in the wrestling business in a printed format or in a modern online site. Hence, the name dirtsheet.
The earliest form of dirtsheets was in the 60s where a woman by the name of Georgiann Makropoulos who herself started a monthly newsletter called "The Wrestling Chatterbox" after writing articles on wrestling magazines.
She had made connections to various wrestlers such as Bruno Sammartino, "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers and many others in the wrestling industry. The Wrestling Chatterbox reported news such as the latest wrestling merchandise of that era, autograph signings and wrestler's birthday.
Even since her newsletter, dirtsheets have evolved into more of a journalistic approach. That's where "The Wrestling Observer Newsletter" comes in. In 1982, a 23-year-old Dave Meltzer was fresh out of college and began publishing his newsletter as a side hustle. He did it to keep the wrestling fans informed in the wrestling industry considering that the mainstream wrestling magazines at the time were catered to a younger audience.
He was heavily criticised because of his journalistic approach to his newsletters within the wrestling industry. Especially when he wrote about steroids use in the industry and wrestler's paycheck. He went full time with it in 1987 and that same year a 16-year-old Wade Keller founded "Pro Wrestling Torch". A monthly newsletter published weekly in his Minnesota home and also founded one of the first ever mixed martial arts site in the early 2000s.
Ever since the mid-1990s and beyond. Dirtsheets would later transition into the online world. One site, in particular, called "1Wrestling.com" was launched in 1997 by a guy named Bob Ryder and had a monthly subscription fee to access newsletters and 1-900 hotlines.
It would later ditch the monthly subscription fee and instead went with a free model and monetize via ads. Even since 1999, the site is been cited by major news publications such as MSNBC, NBC, Time Magazine, USA Today and The Los Angeles Times.
Now the big question, are dirtsheets the wrestling version of tabloids? Not really.
I mean Dirtsheets have reported on stories that most would consider tabloid news. For instance, the whole John Morrison, Melina, Trish stratus situation. If you don't know the story, the gist of it is pretty much Trish got the cold shoulder from Morrison during their celebration win at Wrestlemania 27 (which is the WORST WrestleMania of all time in my opinion) because he felt that his girlfriend at the time Melina deserves that spot over Trish hence, the cold shoulder.
Morrison and Melina got some backstage heat from their peers because Morrison would allow his girlfriend at the time to sleep with other wrestlers like Batista. Another great example of this is the most recent story is the whole on and off relationship with John Cena and Nikki Bella and yes it was reported on US Weekly first but it later got picked up by the dirtsheets.
But they do report on stories that are not or are not like the tabloids like X wrestlers signs with WWE, this ex-writer of WWE moves to another wrestling company, the ALL IN pay per view announces a Pentagon Jr vs Kenny Omega match so on and so forth.
But if they report stories like these sometimes, why do I and other wrestling fans go to those sites? The answer is because they could have an impact on storylines/matchups but also creates conversations that lead to friendships being made or possibly a spouse and that's the BEST thing about being part of a great online wrestling community. Pro wrestling to us is like an oasis or an escape of the real world situations and it makes us feel better about our days because we need those things in our lives.
I hope you enjoyed this and if you do, please share it with someone and let me know in the comments on where do you get your wrestling news from? As always, stay safe smarks.