David Allen 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. He has extensively covered mixed martial arts since UFC 1 in 1993.

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 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.

James William "Jim" Ross (born January 3, 1952) is a professional wrestling commentator, referee, restaurateur, occasional wrestler, and former company executive of WWE, where he currently works as a talent relations consultant and on WWE NXT as a Play-by-Play announcer. Ross was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest commentators in wrestling history. He is known affectionately by wrestling fans as Good Ol' JR. In recent years, he has developed his own brand of barbecue sauces and cookbooks.

While attending Westville High School, Ross was the first baseman on the Westville baseball team. Ross was a two-time all-conference football player for the Westville Yellowjackets in 1968–69. His maternal grandparents owned a general store in Westville, Oklahoma and his paternal grandfather Dee Ross owned an off-sale beer store and was a carpenter. Ross was also President of the Student Body, a 4 year letterman in basketball, and State Vice President of the Future Farmers of America where he was State Speech Champion in 1968. Ross was also named Honorable Mention on the 1969 High School All State Football team by the Tulsa World as a center.

Allen Ray Sarven (born July 18, 1963) is an American professional wrestler and actor better known by his ring name of Al Snow. He is best known for his work in Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment. Since 2010, Snow has worked as a road agent for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and with its developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling, as a trainer and show producer.

Sarven attended a professional wrestling tryout camp held by Ole and Gene Anderson. There he met Jim Lancaster, promoter of Ohio's Midwest Championship Wrestling, who agreed to train him. Lancaster later described Sarven as "a leader in the ring" who "had drive and natural ability". He made his debut on May 22, 1982. Sarven defeated Lancaster on May 5, 1985 for the Midwest Championship Wrestling title.

Sarven wrestled in various independent promotions throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, capturing both tag team and singles titles, but failed to make any big breaks. He gained a reputation as "the best-kept secret in wrestling". Sarven helped train future Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Hall of Fame member and NWA World Heavyweight Champion Dan Severn. During this time he would sometimes wrestle as Shinobi, a ninja-style masked gimmick. He wrestled in the November 19, 1994 tournament for the vacant NWA World Heavyweight Championship, but he lost to Chris Candido, the eventual winner of the tournament.

Alan Robert Rogowski (born September 22, 1942), better known by his ring name of Ole Anderson, is a retired professional wrestler and a promoter. He held numerous NWA World Tag Team Championships with Gene Anderson, who was portrayed as his brother. His ring name is a play on the poisonous plant, oleander.^{[citation needed]}

Anderson started wrestling in 1967 in the American Wrestling Association (AWA) as Rock Rogowski, where he held the AWA Midwest Heavyweight and the AWA Midwest Tag Team Titles.

He went on to work for National Wrestling Alliance-sanctioned promotions such as Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP, out of Charlotte, North Carolina) and Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW), where he adopted the ring name Ole Anderson, and became a member of the legendary tag team called the Minnesota Wrecking Crew with his "brother" Gene Anderson after Lars Anderson left the team in the late 1960s. The team of Ole and Gene became synonymous with tag team wrestling in JCP and GCW for many years running.

Christopher Keith Irvine (born November 9, 1970), known professionally as Chris Jericho, is an American-born Canadian professional wrestler, musician, media personality, actor, author and businessman. He is signed to WWE, appearing on its Raw brand in addition to being the lead singer of heavy metal band Fozzy. He is also well known for his time in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), and internationally in Canadian, Mexican and Japanese promotions.

Jericho has won 30 championships between WWF/E, WCW, and ECW - the three most prominent American promotions in the 1990s and early 2000s. He is credited as being the first Undisputed WWF Champion, having unified the WWE Championship and World Championship (formerly the WCW Championship) in 2001.

In WWE Jericho is a six-time world champion, having won the Undisputed WWF Championship once, the WCW/World Championship twice and the World Heavyweight Championship thrice. He is also a record nine-time Intercontinental Champion, and the fourth WWE Grand Slam Champion.