Dave Meltzer

David Allen "Dave" Meltzer (born October 24, 1959) is an American journalist covering professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. Since 1983, he has been the publisher/editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (WON). Meltzer has also written for the Oakland Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Yahoo! Sports, and The National Sports Daily. He has extensively covered mixed martial arts since UFC 1 in 1993 and currently covers the sport for SB Nation. Meltzer has been called "the most accomplished reporter in sports journalism" by Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated. He is also a frequent lecturer on many aspects of the business of MMA, professional wrestling and boxing at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

Early life

Meltzer was born in New York City, lived in upstate New York until he was ten, before his family settled in San Jose, California. Meltzer earned a journalism degree from San Jose State University and started out as a sports writer for the Wichita Falls Times Record News and the Turlock Journal. He demonstrated an interest in professional wrestling and a journalistic approach to it early in life. Meltzer wrote several wrestling-related publications that predate WON, dating back to 1971. The most notable of these was the California Wrestling Report, ca. 1973–1974, which reported on the still-extant National Wrestling Alliance territories operating out of Los Angeles and San Francisco.