Randy Savage's death: Sports section?

[Dick Whitman]

My guess is that a lot of newspapers relegated the death of Randy "Macho Man" Savage to the sports section today. I know ESPN.com had it as one of its top headlines.

To me, his death is no more a sports story than it was when Dennis Hopper died. Like Hopper in "Hoosiers," the "Macho Man" was an actor playing a role in a scripted sports entertainment offering.

Convince me I'm wrong.

 

[HejiraHenry]

I concur with you. WWF admitted in court that it was a show, and that's one reason it's now WWE (for Entertainment).

I quickly deflected any suggestion that we would be using the Macho Man story in our sports section. That said, I thought it was important that it get into the Saturday entertainment package.

 

[Den1983]

We didn't run it in our sports section. Never even really considered it. It went in our A section.

 

[BillyT]

It should have gone in the front section or the obit page.

Most sports editors I know would ahve kicked it back and held pretty firm.

"Relegated?"

It is *not* a sports story, but I don't think relegated is the right word.

 

[Dick Whitman]

It should have gone in the front section or the obit page.

Most sports editors I know would ahve kicked it back and held pretty firm.

"Relegated?"

It is *not* a sports story, but I don't think relegated is the right word.

You're not thinking like a newsie then.

 

[sgreenwell]

Agree with the crowd, and I'm a big pro wrestling guy. Macho Man goes in with the celebrity obits, which as far as I know, isn't the sports section. I feel like I seldom see obits at all in the sports section, unless it is a huge figure (whenever Ali passes, he's probably on A-1 in a lot of papers or on the sports front) or if there was a big local connection.

I think it's a dicier issue when you get into the area of writing stories on wrestlers. In a slow summer month, I ran a profile on a WWE guy coming into our area, and who had ties to the area too. I got chewed out a bit by the older, more senior sports editor in my chain, but the story got a couple good e-mails and plenty of hits, so it seemed to resonate.

 

[Boom_70]

Nice obit in the NYT today. I bet that was the first time Macho Man ever was mentioned in The Times.

 

[Mystery Meat II]

I take the opposite tack, not because I think pro wrestling is a sport, but because that's where your readers are more likely to look for it. Poker and bridge are both card games, but one moves on sports wires and the other takes up residence with Garfield and the Junior Jumble -- because that's where people expect to see both.

 

[Versatile]

It should have gone in the front section or the obit page.

Most sports editors I know would ahve kicked it back and held pretty firm.

"Relegated?"

It is *not* a sports story, but I don't think relegated is the right word.

You're not thinking like a newsie then.

When things such as this came up at my previous newspaper, where I was more in charge of these decisions at night, it wasn't a matter of relegation at all.

The news-side night editor would come up to me and ask if we were taking the item. If not, they would take it. I can't recall one instance of them saying "Hey, we're not running this, so you should." or "Hey, I saw that you had this item; we want it, so you can't have it."

 

[MonsterLobster]

I was once asked to preview a professional wrestling event at a local VFW and was given permission to do the story as though the wrestler's characters and their feud were real. It was one of the most deeply satisfyingly and morale-boosting things I've ever been able to do.

 

[HanSenSE]

Savage: Definitely news. Pro wrestling as a sport took the last train out of town long time ago.

A quick meeting of minds with newsies usually clears up any turf wars. I do take World Series of Poker and Iditarod, and somehow I ended up with the Bonds trial.

 

[HejiraHenry]

We wind up taking Westminster Dog Show each year mainly because it breaks late and most of the back-of-the-book news pages are finished before 9.

 

[I Should Coco]

Macho Man went in the A section, with the wire news. No question about it.

And even if sports had wanted it, there was no room with state finals gallore to cram in.

 

[Brad Guire]

I'm a mark, and I say it's not sports news. WWE is scripted entertainment.

 

[Diego Marquez]

News offered it to our sports section because he was once a minor league baseball player. Boss shot it down. Ran on an entertainment page.

 

[spikechiquet]

Entertainment passed, news passed, obits passed, we got stuck with it. It was a pain in the ass...but I ran it on 3...I love Macho Man...but it's not sports.
Harmon Killebrew was front page sports for us. That's a sports obit, not this.

 

[93Devil]

Only cover these guys when they die.

Seriously

And the story goes in sports. That's where their fans are when they look at the paper. When papers wrote about pro wrestling (didn't the NYPost?) it was in sports, right?

 

[BillyT]

It should have gone in the front section or the obit page.

Most sports editors I know would ahve kicked it back and held pretty firm.

"Relegated?"

It is *not* a sports story, but I don't think relegated is the right word.

You're not thinking like a newsie then.

No, that would mean I accept their thinking, which I don't.

I have also worked for MEs who were former sports writers so that might skew my thinking.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Two stories in the local rag. A six-inch story held to the front and a pretty big obit.

I'm guessing the only WWF wrestlers who would get similar treatment would be Hogan and Dwayne Johnson.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

It could be put either way. The way I can rationalize sports is that for all the scripted stuff, these guys and gals are legitimate athletes.

I've told this story before, but when Owen Hart died, I put his death on an extra page with ads that I was given. My editor complained that he didn't consider it a big enough story, but I prevailed.

That night, Hart's death was the lead story on NBC Nightly News, plus the others. Next day, my editor admitted he was wrong.

Few years back, when Benoit had his murder/suicide, a group of us had a discussion at my other former paper,about what wrestlers would merit an obit on the front of our section. We were in an area that had a prominent wrestling history. We agreed on Hogan, Sammartino, Vince McMahon, Piper (because of the history), The Rock (although he could have been put on 1A or entertainment), Angle (for the combined WWE/Olympic gold medalist angle and he was super-hot at the time), and perhaps Flair and Austin. A few others (Heenan, Triple H, Bret Hart), we figured we could put in briefs.