Keith Elliot Greenberg Talks WWE In The ’80s
The legendary wrestling writer attended the first WrestleMania.
Keith Elliot Greenberg is revered by wrestling magazine readers.
The New Yorker spent 22 years writing for various WWE publications, including the autobiographies of Ric Flair, “Classy” Freddie Blassie and “Superstar” Billy Graham. From the dawn of WrestleMania to the infancy of the P.G. Era, Greenberg covered the action inside the ring, as well as the drama behind the scenes in WWE.
Now he has broadened his horizons, examining the entire landscape of professional wrestling in his new book Too Sweet: Inside the Indie Wrestling Revolution. A tremendous introduction into the scene, the 294 pages chronicles the history of independent wrestling, from the outlaw promotions of the territory days to the emergence of ROH, PWG and CHIKARA in the wake of the McMahonopoly to the Bullet Club and now AEW.
For a review, click here. To purchase Too Sweet: Inside the Indie Wrestling Revolution, click here.
The following interview has been edited and broken into three parts. Part 1 is here.
When you started writing for WWE, did you have a hard time getting the wrestlers to accept you?
Keith Elliot Greenberg: “Yes. I became a professional writer when I was 19 years old and had written about professional wrestling for several years before. But when I started for WWE, people didn’t know who I was. If they did, they knew I had written about professional wrestling for outside publications. Hence, there was a suspicion about me. All of pro wrestling has a certain backwards logic and etiquette that the rest of the world doesn’t understand. WWE in particular does. I didn’t know what some of those rules were and had to slowly learn. It’s okay to buttonhole a guy in the corridor and ask him for some quotes. It’s not okay to follow him into the changing room to do that. I remember Pat Patterson having a conversation with me to go over the rules. He said ‘if you just follow these things, people will respect you and you’ll feel very comfortable back here.’ I took that seriously and tried to take my signals from others.”
One of my dreams was to write for WWE Magazine or even PWI. But you got in on the ground floor with WWE Magazine. Was there an excitement about what you could do with this new product?
Keith Elliot Greenberg: “There was a lot of that. I was writing about pro wrestling during the buildup to the first WrestleMania. I was at the first WrestleMania when Edward Ricciuti, editor of WWF Magazine, asked if I wanted to write for them regularly. I remember having a conversation with him about when will the wrestling boom end. He said about another two years. ‘You know, this is the beginning of something, another year for the trend to go up and another year for the trend to go down. Will there be a WrestleMania III? Who knows? There probably won’t be a WrestleMania IV.’
That made perfect sense to me. Who could have imagined that wrestling would consistently stay that big? It was a fad. It would be like music. You know, there was grunge music and hip-hop music. Hip-hop has been able to sustain itself for so long in various forms, but I don’t know if in the days of Run DMC and early LL Cool J that people realized hip hop would still be popular all these years later.”
When the territories crumbled during WWE’s national expansion, were you worried about the future of wrestling?
Keith Elliot Greenberg: “I wouldn’t say I was worried, but there was a tinge of sadness there because I grew up with the territory system. I had spoken with enough of the wrestlers who told me they liked the territories because once they got stale in one place, they could be written out of the storyline and disappear for a year to return and be fresh all over again. You know, the world was changing. It was becoming less innocent. With cable TV, you could be national.
“The “Unpredictable” Johnny Rodz would primarily lose on TV in WWWF. He went out to Los Angeles and rebranded himself as Java Ruuk. He wore an Arab headdress and was a different character. We got the Los Angeles wrestling promotion on Spanish TV in New York and it was cool to see him win out there.”
People like to compare the current indie scene to the territories, but with the internet and social media, I don’t think you can be a jobber in one promotion and be a headliner in another.
Keith Elliot Greenberg: “I don’t know about that. You could work for Game Changer Wrestling and maybe go out to Absolute Intense Wrestling and lose over there and then go to Freelance Wrestling in Chicago and win over there and go to C*4 in Ottawa and be a midcarder. Fans are also a little more sophisticated now and understand that even when you lose, you can win. There’s a story in my book about The Young Bucks having a losing streak in PWG and rather than hurt them, it increased the fans’ fascination with them and created an underdog aura. Nobody thought they were scrubs because they were losing. It was an intriguing story.”
Legendary writer @KeithEGreenberg is in the house promoting his brand new book “too sweet, inside the indie wrestling revolution” at @collective2020
— Kevin Gill (@OGkevingill) October 9, 2020
MUST READ!!!!!! #PhotoByKG pic.twitter.com/v9r57skk7v
Reading the chapters on David Starr, Joey Ryan and CHIKARA felt weird in the wake of the #SpeakingOut movement. Did you feel you had to make changes or was it already too late?
Keith Elliot Greenberg: “This came up. Let’s be honest, the jury is still out. We don’t know all the details yet. It’s very healthy that the topic is being broached. I hope we come away more informed and with women feeling safer contributing to an industry that we all love. The book had been written, we had just selected the photos and the executive editor and I had a discussion about whether any of the photos should be removed. My argument was all these people had been part of the indie wrestling revolution. To excise them from that history would be the same as crossing Chris Benoit’s name from professional wrestling history. We can’t pretend he never existed. That Joey Ryan gimmick was over and was a big part of All In. Joey Ryan recently said he’s suing his accusers so that story isn’t over yet.”
That’s a good point. And your job was to just provide the facts of the indie revolution.
Keith Elliot Greenberg: “That’s the thing – people see their roles differently. When I used to be backstage, I wasn’t one of the guys who would sit next to the wrestlers by the monitor and say ‘look, that guy missed a spot. He’s burying him. Why did he accept this gimmick they gave him?’ There were people who would talk like that. I did not. I’ve never taken a bump in my life. I’m not a worker. I’m a writer and I look at myself more as a journalist than someone who editorializes. I’m not here to cast judgment; I’m here to chronicle.”
Were there any independent promotions that you wanted to cover that you couldn’t get access to or had to be cut from the book?
Keith Elliot Greenberg: “There was one chapter that I tried to write about professional wrestling in China. It didn’t quite take off there. When AEW started, they were affiliated with OWE, but they ended up moving from China. I spoke to some people who staged shows in China. They emphasized that the Chinese didn’t really understand what professional wrestling was. They didn’t understand the theatrical element of it. They attempted to insert some Chinese fighting forms into the wrestling shows. But it wasn’t enough of a movement to warrant a chapter.”
One company not included that I did want to ask about: ECWA.
Keith Elliot Greenberg: “They are mentioned, but only briefly. You know, their tournament being a draw during the waning days of ECW. But yes, I wish I had gotten down to their tournament and shows because they are a very, very important promotion.”
Part 3 is here.
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