What Killed Wrestling?

Stone Cold, The Rock & John Cena / amped illustration

It's funny how one moment or experience can you send you down memory lane or do things you never expected to do again. It was a normal evening for me , catching up on sports news and YouTube surfing, and I came across a clip off an old wrestling match. I hadn't actively watched anything wrestling related in years, being a lapsed fan who hadn't cared in years and out of nostalgia curiosity and boredom I checked it out. It was a The Rock vs Triple H match, and before I knew it, I was appreciating and noticing some things I never noticed. The stamina and strength it takes to perform, The Rock's incredible mic skills , how alive the crowds were, and before I knew it I was completely into it, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. The Rock was about to perform The People's Elbow and before I could catch myself, I found myself screaming and shouting with the crowd. It was incredible and exhilarating. I had been so pumped and excited watching.

So I started to wonder, what had happened ? After a week of binging old WWF, TNA, ROH and WCW content all I could wonder was what happened. I started watching modern WWE matches, and reading up on the WWE and it's former stars. WWE stars used to be worldwide cultural icons, proper superstars, you could ask random people and 9 out of 10 people would be familiar with wrestling, and especially their superstars - Ric Flair , The Rock , Hulk Hogan , Stone Cold and many more. Nowadays their current rosters are filled with stars only within wrestling fans, I can't name any save for maybe John Cena and Randy Orton off the top of my head, and they were rookies and rising stars from the last era of WWE megastars.

After a week of reading up, I highlighted essentially what led to the WWE's current decline :

1. Buying the WCW

It sounds odd, because purchasing WCW was a move that made WWE even bigger and more successful. The WCW used to be a huge rival to the WWE and they competed fiercely. The WCW was then bought out by the WWE in the early 2000s. The merger of such talent made the WWE the ultimate wrestling platform and unrivalled. Problem is without a rival making you stay sharp, to copy ideas from and learn from the WWE became stagnant, it became one giant with no rivals to truly keep it on it's toes and keep innovating and experimenting, causing the product to become stale.

2. Becoming PG rated

A part of what made wrestling appealing was how dangerous and edgy it was. It pushed the envelope often, it swung and missed at times, but they tried. People got bloodied up, language, stunts, storylines and scenes you weren't always quite sure should be on TV. WWE was forced to become PG to survive and become more family friendly, losing the edge and boldness that made its popularity reach its zenith in the attitude era.

3. Scandals of the mid 2000s (Steroids, CTE , Chris Benoit and the early death of big stars)

The WWE was rocked by multiple scandals. CTE, finding out that wrestling stars were subjecting themselves to concussions and the cherry on top, Chris Benoit. The now dead WWE star who killed his wife and son before killing himself, had mental health issues probably aggravated by CTE, the drugs he used to enhance his performance (steroids and more) and alcohol. Hulk Hogan, arguably the greatest wrestling superstar ever, admitting it was fake was probably another death knell. All sorts of scandals snowballed into an avalanche that killed the sport's popularity, it began to be viewed as dangerous and harmful forcing it out of mainstream spotlight.

4. Not being culturally relevant

The attitude era perfectly mirrored the spirit of the time. The glitzy, excess, super american feel of the 80s, or the edgy and rebellious attitude era of the 90s and early 2000s made modern WWE and other wrestling eras feel like old relics. Also gimmicks, storylines and characters feel inorganic, they don't feel like a part of this age.

5. Losing The Rock and Stone Cold

More importantly losing them without having stars to replace them. Stone cold lost interest and The Rock had an amazing career path opening up to him in Hollywood. Due to this, WWE lost two of their biggest stars just before a rocky transition period. No one has been able to fill the void these two have left since leaving WWE. Sure CM Punk( who has retired and quit) and John Cena are relatively well known and popular but they aren't as iconic, people don't want to be them. There's still a hole left in the WWE when it comes to superstars.

But what can they do to stop this current slow march to death?

They need a new creative direction. The WWE needs fresh blood in creative or at least experiment more to match the modern era that we are in. How they will do it? I have no idea but with ideas like a wrestler with terrorism as his gimmick (yes seriously) it's clear that fresh talent is needed.

Build up new stars, WWE needs to allow more talent to rise and not bury to maintain old talent and the status quo ( looking at you Cena ) and relying on superstars of the past can only get you so far, they are getting up there in age and a new batch of superstars need to be made.

And maybe wrestling is done, an antique of the past that will eventually fade into true obscurity like the circus. But it truly was a special program that entertained millions upon millions of fans and I truly believed it can be revived.