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What happened to Professional Wrestling? why did it drop in popularity?

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Van Owen said:
In internet killed the mystique of pro wrestling.
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Internet was there long before the wrestling boom.

I know because I was involved in hundreds of WCW vs WWF arguments online in 1997.

In fact, wrestling fans on the internet seem way less passionate ever since WCW and ECW died.
 
WWE focuses on maybe 4 people who are main eventers and the mid card is an afterthought, which is where the stars of tomorrow are usually built.
 
The product got stale and went PG. They don't properly push the wrestlers that deserve to be pushed. Every wrestler has to take a back seat to John Cena. John cena is a great guy because of his Make-A-Wish contributions, but as a wrestler he just continually gets shoved down our throats. Which leads to poor storylines.

Back in the attitude era, every match had an amazing promo video leading up to the match explaining why they're fighting. Nowadays, there's nothing. There's no real story being told. Backstage segments are far and few between and are only for the high profile feuds. Aside from the two titles and whatever John Cena is involved with, there's absolutely no build up to any match.

Vince McMahon is too out of touch with the fan base. He gets the final say in who does and doesn't get a head which is unfair. A great example being Zack Ryder. Wrestlers are constantly told to do something to make them great and get ahead. Ryder had his YouTube series that was getting him over. Everyone thought that was exactly what the WWE wanted. People backstage were thinking, "Great this is what management wants and he's getting it!"... but for whatever reason Ryder got put into horrible storylines and basically buried. That killed morale backstage.
 
TheWarrior said:
WWE focuses on maybe 4 people who are main eventers and the mid card is an afterthought, which is where the stars of tomorrow are usually built.
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Isn't this what WWE was pre-Attitude era though? Hogan, Warrior, Undertaker were all the major stars. Hogan would win the belt all the time. Mid card guys like Rick Rude, Jake Roberts, Mr. Perfect, who were great workers never got major pushes and pretty much were kept down at the mid-tier level. I wonder if Vince is just going back to what works with the kids because the attitude era would never work in 2014.
 
PlayALLtheGames said:
I'm surprised it exists at all. I was absolutely sure back in the late 90s that wrestling wouldn't survive past mid-2000s.
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You were saying this in the late-90s?

WWE is giving too much to their audience. 3 hours of Raw, One for Main Event, one for NXT, and two for Smackdown. That's a week of wrestling from them. They want to own you.

Now I love NXT, but JEEZUS.
 
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everything declines in popularity eventually
 
McMahon buying out ECW/WCW

McMahon and writers failing to put over talent.

McMahan and writers dropping momentum in storylines.

The rise of UFC.
 
Lack of viable competition gives WWE no incentive to take risks, which was one of the primary drivers of the Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era. As a result they play it extremely safe. Playing it safe leads to stagnation and high predictability, which is not fun to watch at all. Once the old guard finally has to retire, you will get some new guys to take their place and it starts all over again (LOLROMANWINS)

Even though you see the same faces in the main event, it is because people still support them...even saying things like "CENA SUCKS" is still something because it acknowledges Cena. Hell WWE even made some CENA SUCKS merch.

Also, I think making RAW a 3 hour show is one of the biggest mistakes ever. Everyone watching is tired at the end and there is usually so much fluff that you could really cut that Eva Marie vs. Cameron or that Fandango vs. Zach Ryder match and make it into a fine tuned 2 hour program.

I still really enjoy NXT though.
 
I grew up with Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Brett Hart, British Bulldog, Yokozuna, Undertaker and then later, The Rock, Stone Cold and Chris Jericho. The staged fighting just became too repetitive and the personalities became too boring. To me, The Rock was the peak of the WWE. He was so charismatic and so hilarious to watch and you just can't help but root for him. When he left WWE (or rarely showed up) to start making movies was around the time that I stopped caring completely.

I haven't watched much wrestling over the last decade or so but every time, I turn it on, I see a bunch of zero-charisma guys with boring names doing the same old shit in the ring that I saw two decades ago.

EDIT: I know it's staged but after so many decades, routines like having an ally distract the ref or the ref being there just for show gets really really old. Basically, they take no risk at all when it comes to performing and coming up with new gimmicks or even rotating the gimmicks.
 
Sometime in the early 2000s, RAW moved from USA to TNN or something else. It wasn't in our cable package and I never really followed again after watching almost every show. When it came back to USA I just didn't care.
 
it's just an awful product today. i got tricked into watching a couple of shows these last few months and it stuns me how something this bad got a TV deal.
 
I do not remember a time when wrestling was a "thing". People in my school used to make fun of wrestling fans. It was lame, even when I was in middle school/high school.

I'm sure it had a lot of popularity in the 90's, but saying everyone watched it seems like a gross exaggeration.
 
IDK, I was all in the Attitude Era during my high school years.

Now that all the old school guys are out, every time I see WWE, I have a lot of difficulty liking the newest ones.

A good friend of mine is still a big fan, when he watches it at my place I always poke him about how it's all about big muscle guys in speedo doing some comedy before slapping each other a couple of times.

I would've slugged myself in the face saying such things, back then, hah!

There a couple of guys that stand out though, I love wrestlers with gimmicky shticks, like Bad News Barret that always comes out on stage to tell bad news to people, or Bo Dallas who's always so positive with his opponents, telling them to ''BOLIEVE!'', then doing a victory lap around the ring after each fights, it always cracks me up. Most of the others though, ugh, I just don't feel them.
 
I think the popularity died along with WCW and ECW. Fans knew wrestling was fake but the rivalry between the companies was real and guys were fighting for their livelihood. Lack of competition made WWE lazy. All their programming is stale and predictable and largely meaningless. They have commercial breaks between matches, constant shilling of their various products, never ending replays of shit we just saw, and an irritating announce team. It's almost painful to watch.

For all the shit TNA gets, their weekly program was usually easier to watch than Raw. And it seemed like they were trying to go for something, it just seemed like no one knew what that actually was.
 
Speaking for myself? The popular wrestlers retired, the new wrestlers didn't/don't have as much charisma. I always watched wrestling mostly for the funny interviews and insane moments, more-so than the actual wrestling.

I've seen a few clips of current WWE stuff and it looked/looks awful. John Cena has the look to be an interesting wrestler but his gimmick is sooooooo boring. A goody-two-shoes marine who has the same repertoire of moves. If he dropped the annoying gimmick and became more serious, I think that'd be interesting. Also, they should totally make him a heel. It can be the start of a new era. Heck, I'd watch one episode just to see what's up.

Because the product is "fake" I think they should go for less comedy and more intensity. Also, it seems like the non-PPV shows are largely irrelevant. For example, has the title ever changed hands on a RAW? I dropped wrestling around the time Austin completely retired, don't plan on watching it again. Though the video games can be fun.
 
megamerican said:
I think the popularity died along with WCW and ECW. Fans knew wrestling was fake but the rivalry between the companies was real and guys were fighting for their livelihood. Lack of competition made WWE lazy. All their programming is stale and predictable and largely meaningless. They have commercial breaks between matches, constant shilling of their various products, never ending replays of shit we just saw, and an irritating announce team. It's almost painful to watch.

For all the shit TNA gets, their weekly program was usually easier to watch than Raw. And it seemed like they were trying to go for something, it just seemed like no one knew what that actually was.
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This.
 
Toki767 said:
Tell that to Sin Cara. The original one. Dude was the most popular guy in Mexico and he got buried in WWE for acting like a star.
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No, he got buried because:

a) He refused to learn to speak English, necessary for communicating with other wrestlers mid-match.
b) He botched half his moves.
c) He needed someone like Daniel Bryan to have a good match, and Bryan wasn't going to fight him weekly.

Sin Cara should've been forced to go to NXT and learn WWE style. He didn't.
 
Because most of the characters aren't interesting now. There are flashes of awesomeness, like The Shield or The Wyatts, but overall WWE doesn't have enough talent or charisma on their roster to fill the three hour show they have every week. A lot of it is really fucking boring.
 
People have more options now, and they did a terrible job of getting new talent into the mix.

I mean, given how long many main-eventers have stuck around and crowded out those spots, why would anyone talented and charismatic want to waste their time languishing behind those guys?
 
From a light observational perspective (I don't watch WWE currently and haven't in many years, but I keep my ear to the ground) it looked like they had a good thing going with Daniel Bryan but the higher ups had zero confidence in him, and when they finally did right by him it was too late (and then all his injury stuff happened, too).
 
I was completely obsessed with wrestling during the Monday Night Wars, and even before that. Loved Hogan, The Warrior, Bret Hart, etc.

The lack of competition in wrestling these days is probably the main factor. God damn, I really tried to get back into it with the WWE Network and everything, but it's just so bad.
 
The talent dropped and the new comers just didn't offer the same entertainment as previous super stars.

Also the lack of competition is what really killed it, like any other business, if you aren't keeping at the top of your game, then fans will lose interest.
 
For me it got awful around post 2002. Some decent Wrestlers/events but overall not enough for me to stick around. Lack of real competition also hurt, not much variety.
 
Most of the stars I grew up with are retired or dead, the PG rating and it's just less appealing as an adult.
 
The Ufc versus reality TV split sounds like a pretty good explanation to me. people who want violence have a place to go. People who want melodrama have an enormous menu of cheesy weirdness. The people who live and die by wrestling's particular blend is not the largest demographic.
 
Raw64life said:
Rated PG, no suitable competition for WWE, bad writing/character development, Internet spoiling everything, the business is incredibly exposed these days, etc. The list goes on and on.
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fredrancour said:
The Ufc versus reality TV split sounds like a pretty good explanation to me. people who want violence have a place to go. People who want melodrama have an enormous menu of cheesy weirdness. The people who live and die by wrestling's particular blend is not the largest demographic.
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The twitter/24 hour news cycle that has sensationalized real life sports peovably doesn't help. Richard Sherman's rant after the NFC title game earlier this year was more controversial and over than anything any wrestler has done in the last ten years. Wwe had no crossover appeal in this way anymore. People would genuinely tune in during the Monday night wars era to see if the shit going on was real or scripted. It had that train wreck effect that viewers get from every show these days, without the stigma that wrestling brings.
 
All the big stars got old. The product turned PG and there weren't many stars to replace the retiring ones. Cena and CM Punk are the only stars I know from the modern day era but they don't compete with the Rock, Austin, HBK, etc from the previous generation. The only time I even think about watching it now is when the old timers come back and fight like the Rock vs Cena fight.
 
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