If you frequented the interwebs today, you probably read a story about former TNA Wrestling X-Division Champion Sheik Abdul Bashir returning to the promotion. According to the reports, Bashir had re-signed with the company and was expected at tomorrow night’s television tapings in Orlando, Florida.
Since the vast majority of “news” websites simply copy and paste from other sites without doing any independent verification or confirming what they’re posting, this story began to spread. Sure, it didn’t spread like wildfire, but it spread nonetheless. The gang here at TNAStars.com opted not to post the story today because the “sources” had been wrong on similar stories regarding TNA Wrestling in the past.
And wouldn’t you know it, this story seems to have been debunked. As best we can tell, this is how the story progressed.
At some point today, the folks at SuperLuchas.net posted the following “news” story on their website:
“Shawn Daivari” (Dara Daivari) ha sido recontratado en TNA y se espera que tenga alguna participación en las grabaciones del 31 de marzo de TNA Impact!
Daivari vuelve a la empresa luego de renunciar el 2009.
In case you don’t speak Spanish, that blurb says:
“Shawn Daivari” (Daivari Dara) has been re-signed with TNA and is expected to have some involvement in the recordings of March 31, TNA Impact!
Daivari returns to the company after resigning in 2009.
This story wound up getting picked up by some of the more trafficked websites and eventually spread to the point where many of the not-so-highly trafficked websites carried the story, too. Somewhere later today, though, the team at WrestleZone.com reported that Bashir was not returning to the promotion. Here is what that website posted earlier tonight:
Daivari contacted WrestleZone this evening and informed us that he has NOT re-signed with the company and that he is still a freelance wrestler. Promotions interested in booking Daivari can contact him through his agent at BookDaivari@gmail.com.
What this story reinforces in my mind (and hopefully yours) is that you can’t believe everything that you read out there on the interwebs – especially when it comes to professional wrestling. I encourage all of you who might have believed this story to go back to the website where you first read it and ask the webmaster why he/she allowed an unconfirmed report to be posted on their website. And, from a practical perspective, I strongly suggest that you find a new professional wrestling website to visit for your news, rumors, results, and opinions.
Now watch – I write this exposé on this bullshit, fabricated, lie of a story and Bashir will wind up appearing at the iMPACT! tapings tomorrow night! But hey, I’m a huge fan of his (I think his was the first profile/gallery I put together on TNAStars.com while the site was pre-operational) so I hope to see him back on TNA Wrestling television soon!