Wrestling Losing Popularity and Ratings

[James Harvey]

I read this interesting article over at www.moviepoopshoot.com :

Teenage boys are moving beyond World Wrestling Entertainment's signature shows even as many high-profile wrestlers make the move to the big screen. Is this the beginning of the end for the WWE?

The Nielsen numbers have body-slammed Vince McMahon, chairman of WWE, and his wife Linda, the CEO, Variety's John Dempsey reports. For the first 5 1/2 months of the year, SMACKDOWN, has lost 35% of its 12-to-17-year-old males compared with the same period in 2001. Show, UPN's two-hour bellwether Thursday at 8, has also seen its household ratings fall by 10%.

For RAW IS WAR, which airs on TNN Mondays from 8 to 10, the desertion rate in males 12-17 is 19% year to year. The decline in households is 6%.

The reasons for this lack of interest began with the loss of many of the more popular pro wrestlers. "With the Rock making like Arnold Schwarzenegger on the big screen, the WWE doesn't have the big-draw, marquee wrestler to keep the kids enthralled," said Garnett Losak, VP and director of programming for Petry Media, which represents TV-station clients in their programming decisions.

While the Rock's career is soaring (Universal's SCORPION KING has grossed more than $90 million in U.S. theaters), Steve Austin, another star wrestler, walked out after a disagreement with the WWE and then recently got into trouble with San Antonio police for allegedly beating up his wife Debra, who's also his manager.

Another problem for the WWE is that the attention span of teenage boys keeps getting shorter and shorter. "You've got extreme sports like the X Games drawing young men, reality shows like AMERICAN IDOL and DOG EAT DOG cropping up all over the place and a whole array of videogames," said David Carter, a principal in the Los Angeles-based Sports Business Group.

Overall, "The declines by the WWE don't appear to be any more drastic than the declines we're seeing across all sports," Carroll said, adding that he uses the word "sport" advisedly since all of the matches follow a preordained script devised by a cadre of writers on the WWE payroll.

But David Carter is still convinced that "the McMahons are going to have to develop new talent and manufacture new personalities"-- which is precisely what the WWE is doing, according to the federation's exec VP and chief marketing officer Julie Hoffman.

She cites the casting under way for the third cycle of 13 episodes of the MTV primetime series TOUGH ENOUGH, which puts wrestling candidates through SURVIVOR-type challenges, with the winner landing a contract with the WWE.

But if RAW and SMACKDOWN continue to experience Nielsen erosion, Carroll said Vince McMahon will go all out to get the viewers back. "McMahon is a master at adapting to changing circumstances," Carroll said. "He's not only a showman, but one of the savviest marketers in the business."

Comments?

[czyznyck99]

Well, Austin getting himself canned doesn't help... :(

The Rock popping up as a "guest star" is getting old... :(

Boys' waning attention span does not hold well for their academic careers... :mad:

This report is discouraging for everybody... :rolleyes:

Oh, well. The WWE is getting better.

I'm going to go study now, before my short attention span makes me do something else. :p

Later.

[EinBebop]

The real decline started when they took Stephanie off television. Stephanie = ratings.

[VashTheStampede]

The real decline started when they took Stephanie off television. Stephanie = ratings.
I hope you are kidding.

[langden alger]

hey, who's kidding?? just ask vince himself, he'll tell you. any mcmahon on the shows equals mega ratings. ;)

[Fallout Boy]

I don't pretend to be a big wrestling fan. In fact, I really lost interest in wrestling in the late '80s.

But I did watch most of the Tough Enough II shows. And I will say this - if the WWE is counting on those two obnoxious women that won to save their franchise, they are DOOMED.

[The Game]

TV or not, the real decline began when Steph took over as head writer and booker.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

-The Game

[The Penguin]

Tell me something I don't know. The WWF/WWE goes thru this every now and again and they always manage to rise from the ashes better than before. These same kind of stories were around in the mid-90s and everyone was wondering if the WWF was in a complete downward spiral after losing Hogan in 1993. Then "Attitude" came into being and professional wrestling was more popular than ever before.

We are once again at a cross-roads for the WWE. This time they must "replace" Austin and (sometimes) The Rock. It may not look great now, but in a year, the press will be talking about the sudden "rebirth" of pro wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment. Just like Vince McMahon, I guarantee it. ;)

[Sheamon]

The article pretty much neglects what is the main reason.

After years of battling, the WWF finally vanquished its main rival in WCW, and defeated ECW as well. With no big time competitors anymore, there was little insentive to go over the top and get really original storylines. They got lazy, plain and simple. Both the wrestling and the storylines suffered and became extremely mediocre. Thus, tons of people leave, and long time fans like myself are extremely dissappointed with the state of the business right now. (I haven' t gone as far as completely abandoning the company, I still watch RAW & Smackdown, and talk about it on the web, although I no longer purchase PPVs, go to the official website, buy any merchandice, etc...)

I think this in the long run will be very good for the business. Vince and friends will realize that they have to do something big to get the fans back. The horrible talent will be weeded out. Massive storylines like Austin vs. McMahanon was will be written. They'll stop the cheapness of the titles and make the matches more legitimate. Then, they'll find themselves with huge popularity again. Of course the cycle will continue, they'll get lazy, the thing will collapse again and things will repeat once more, just like they've been doing for a long time with this company.

Things will get better, I'm sure of it. We're simply in a down time right now. Its happened before, and has been fixed before. I am very confident it will be fixed again.

[The Game]

Originally posted by The Penguin


We are once again at a cross-roads for the WWE. This time they must "replace" Austin and (sometimes) The Rock. It may not look great now, but in a year, the press will be talking about the sudden "rebirth" of pro wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment. Just like Vince McMahon, I guarantee it. ;)

I totally agree. I think it's only a matter of time- a new age of superstars led by Edge, Rob Van Dam, Booker T, and (unfortunatley) Brock Lessnar are making their way to the top of the food chain to replace Austin, Rock, and Undertaker.

It's almost a little sad to see the top wrestlers I've watched since '98 (yeah, I'm still relativley new to the wrestling scene) fading away or leaving, but things can't get much worse than they are now.

Vinny Mac is a brilliant businessman, whether he's a pompous jackass and egomaniac or not, and I can't see him staying down for too long.

-The Game

[EinBebop]

Originally posted by The Game
It's almost a little sad to see the top wrestlers I've watched since '98 (yeah, I'm still relativley new to the wrestling scene) fading away or leaving, but things can't get much worse than they are now.


If you have no recollection of the Gobbledygooker or Mantaur, then you have no idea how much worst things can get. :D

[Nightwing]

Originally posted by Fallout Boy
But I did watch most of the Tough Enough II shows. And I will say this - if the WWE is counting on those two obnoxious women that won to save their franchise, they are DOOMED.

LOL! Hey now may not be a wrestling fan, and I haven't watched much of those Tough Enough specials, but of what I DID see, I have developed a new respect for the job of a professional wrestler. I realized it's not all pretending and cornballing. So I had to rethink my cynical opinions just a bit. :)

[Jeff Harris]

Three reasons why the decline has occurred:
1) Lack of Competition and Identity,
2) The Beckoning of Hollywood, and
3) The "Brand Extension"

Let's break it down . . .

1) Lack of Competition and Identity. Let's face it. The WWF, um, I mean the WWE was really good when World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was around. Back in the olden days when TNT's WCW Monday Nitro and USA's Monday Night Raw were around, both were competing for the attention of wrestling fans. Because storylines were becoming a part of the "WWF Attitude," more people got into the WWF than WCW, though the "traditional wrestling" roots deep within WCW were a draw for wrestling fans as well. WCW took over with the NWO storyline for a while, then WWF countered with D-Generation X (DX). Superstars were made in both companies over the years, then the WWF thrived to get rid of their competition piece by piece.

The Nashville Network snagged cable rights to the popular Northeastern promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling, and around this time, Vinnie Mac got tired of his shows being on USA. When TNN's parent, CBS, got bought by ubermedia company Viacom, Vince had a plan . . . an evil plan. He could basically sell cable rights to his shows to Viacom, spreading Raw, Sunday Night Heat, Livewire, and Superstars throughout the Viacom nets as well as develop new ones. Not surprisingly, Viacom signed on with the well-established WWF and dropped the ratings-deprived ECW, effectively killing the organization in one fell swoop.

Meanwhile, the Turner organization (minus founder Ted Turner) decided to sell WCW years later. Originally, a group led by Eric Bischoff was the leading bidders, and planned on keeping WCW programming on TBS and TNT. Vince wanted to buy WCW, but Viacom forbided it, because they didn't want WWF to shift to the competition at a drop of the hat.

However, around the time Bischoff's group were about to ink the deal, in comes the K-Beast, new Turner CEO Jamie Kellner, who sought a reconstruction of the Turner organization. One of the things to go was WCW programming from the Turner nets. Since the TBS/TNT network deal was one of the catalysts for the Bisch's group to buy the company, they immediately halted their attempts. Meanwhile, almost out of the blue, Vince came back, and basically bought the company for chump change, and helped engineer a new Wrestling multicompany.

Sure, the "Invasion" angle was nice for a while, but after the Survivor Series last year, they basically killed the WCW and ECW again, this time for good. Now, without competition, they kind of got the idea that wrestling fans will come straight to them because they're the only game in town. Weak storylines after the invasion came about over the next few months, and, as expected, ratings dropped. A recent spice-up with Ric Flair and Vince co-owning the company was good, but it was short term, then they had that atrocious roster split. Now, Vince is back under control with a split roster.

The identity it had for the longest time of being raw and unpredictable had grown stale. Aging wrestlers and not pushing younger stars had transferred over from WCW to WWF. Now, they don't even have that name anymore, now going by the less-marketable WWE name. Their identity is gone, and I don't see them coming back from that anytime soon.

2) The Beckoning of Hollywood. The superstars of the WWE are becoming less and less superstars of the WWE and more and more becoming Hollywood players. The Rock is perhaps the most recognized wrestler on the planet, and part of that has to do with his movie role as the Scorpion King. Wrestlers like the Hardy Boyz, Edge, Booker T, and others are seen in places beyond WWE wrestling programs. Heck, they turned five untrained wrestlers into professional performers courtesy of Tough Enough. Hollywood has left a sour taste on the WWE.

3) The "Brand Extension." Separating tag teams like the Acolytes and the Dudley Boys made a brief drama during the "Flair's Raw vs. McMahon's Smackdown" storyline, but it caused more overall damage than good. Basically, Raw features more wrestlers synonimous with WCW and ECW and a few "minor" WWF wrestlers, and Smackdown had mostly the brand names of the WWF like Kurt Angle, Edge, Hulk Hogan, Triple H, and The Rock. Since the "brand extension," as Jim noted, Raw's ratings have dropped dramatically. Why shouldn't it? Afterall, everything that used to be WWF is now only seen on Smackdown, so why watch Raw anymore? The lack of "real" WWF Superstars on Raw hurt, and the fact that Vince never restored the traditional roster after he "won back" the other 50% from Flair makes it seem like that this roster change may be permanent. It's stupid, and quite frankly, it's one of Vince's fatal moves for the future of his company.

Of course, I could be wrong.

[SonGoku V3]

Nemalki, Nemalki, Nemalki.............

HOW do you know about wrestling too???? :p Either you're really a super computer created by the mad scientists down in Atlanta, or you just know ALOT of facts about things concerning entertainment! Did you go to a special school to receive this knowledge, and if so, where can I get an application?

And here I was thinking I knew all about the whole WWF/WCW/ECW situation......

[Memphis Bleek]

Originally posted by nemalki
Three reasons why the decline has occurred:
1) Lack of Competition and Identity,
2) The Beckoning of Hollywood, and
3) The "Brand Extension"

Let's break it down . . .

1) Lack of Competition and Identity. Let's face it. The WWF, um, I mean the WWE was really good when World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was around. Back in the olden days when TNT's WCW Monday Nitro and USA's Monday Night Raw were around, both were competing for the attention of wrestling fans. Because storylines were becoming a part of the "WWF Attitude," more people got into the WWF than WCW, though the "traditional wrestling" roots deep within WCW were a draw for wrestling fans as well. WCW took over with the NWO storyline for a while, then WWF countered with D-Generation X (DX). Superstars were made in both companies over the years, then the WWF thrived to get rid of their competition piece by piece.

The Nashville Network snagged cable rights to the popular Northeastern promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling, and around this time, Vinnie Mac got tired of his shows being on USA. When TNN's parent, CBS, got bought by ubermedia company Viacom, Vince had a plan . . . an evil plan. He could basically sell cable rights to his shows to Viacom, spreading Raw, Sunday Night Heat, Livewire, and Superstars throughout the Viacom nets as well as develop new ones. Not surprisingly, Viacom signed on with the well-established WWF and dropped the ratings-deprived ECW, effectively killing the organization in one fell swoop.

Meanwhile, the Turner organization (minus founder Ted Turner) decided to sell WCW years later. Originally, a group led by Eric Bischoff was the leading bidders, and planned on keeping WCW programming on TBS and TNT. Vince wanted to buy WCW, but Viacom forbided it, because they didn't want WWF to shift to the competition at a drop of the hat.

However, around the time Bischoff's group were about to ink the deal, in comes the K-Beast, new Turner CEO Jamie Kellner, who sought a reconstruction of the Turner organization. One of the things to go was WCW programming from the Turner nets. Since the TBS/TNT network deal was one of the catalysts for the Bisch's group to buy the company, they immediately halted their attempts. Meanwhile, almost out of the blue, Vince came back, and basically bought the company for chump change, and helped engineer a new Wrestling multicompany.

Sure, the "Invasion" angle was nice for a while, but after the Survivor Series last year, they basically killed the WCW and ECW again, this time for good. Now, without competition, they kind of got the idea that wrestling fans will come straight to them because they're the only game in town. Weak storylines after the invasion came about over the next few months, and, as expected, ratings dropped. A recent spice-up with Ric Flair and Vince co-owning the company was good, but it was short term, then they had that atrocious roster split. Now, Vince is back under control with a split roster.

The identity it had for the longest time of being raw and unpredictable had grown stale. Aging wrestlers and not pushing younger stars had transferred over from WCW to WWF. Now, they don't even have that name anymore, now going by the less-marketable WWE name. Their identity is gone, and I don't see them coming back from that anytime soon.

2) The Beckoning of Hollywood. The superstars of the WWE are becoming less and less superstars of the WWE and more and more becoming Hollywood players. The Rock is perhaps the most recognized wrestler on the planet, and part of that has to do with his movie role as the Scorpion King. Wrestlers like the Hardy Boyz, Edge, Booker T, and others are seen in places beyond WWE wrestling programs. Heck, they turned five untrained wrestlers into professional performers courtesy of Tough Enough. Hollywood has left a sour taste on the WWE.

3) The "Brand Extension." Separating tag teams like the Acolytes and the Dudley Boys made a brief drama during the "Flair's Raw vs. McMahon's Smackdown" storyline, but it caused more overall damage than good. Basically, Raw features more wrestlers synonimous with WCW and ECW and a few "minor" WWF wrestlers, and Smackdown had mostly the brand names of the WWF like Kurt Angle, Edge, Hulk Hogan, Triple H, and The Rock. Since the "brand extension," as Jim noted, Raw's ratings have dropped dramatically. Why shouldn't it? Afterall, everything that used to be WWF is now only seen on Smackdown, so why watch Raw anymore? The lack of "real" WWF Superstars on Raw hurt, and the fact that Vince never restored the traditional roster after he "won back" the other 50% from Flair makes it seem like that this roster change may be permanent. It's stupid, and quite frankly, it's one of Vince's fatal moves for the future of his company.

Of course, I could be wrong.

I disagree with some of your points. I think the WWF biggest problems are injuries, hollywood, and unprofessional behavior.

Look at the Injury List/Non Active Roster

The Rock
Triple H
Edge
Rhyno
Kane
Kevin Nash
Chris Benoit
Stone Cold Steve Austin

You can't take away all of the main eventer or main eventer caliber peformers away and expect your company to run smoothly. You end up with wreslter wrestling the same opponents every week. The roster split is good because the WWF has too many wrestler for all of their superstars to be on both shows. The roster split help to build future stars. Invasion didn't work because it was poorly plan and executed. When the Invasion happen where was the nWo, Big Poppa pump, and Goldberg.

Finally the WWF has always had one big main eventer who sold tickets. First, it was the Andre the Giant. After the Andre, it Hulk who was the main attraction. Hulkmania ran wild until '93. After Hulk it was Bret Hart turn to led the company. Then Shawn Michaels took the reins as the top guy. After HBK broke his back the Austin Era begin. The Rock became the second coming of the most Electriying Man in Sports Entertainment. There are a few guys poised to take the Rock's place but Triple H, Kurt Angle, and Undertaker don't interested the casual fans like the Rock does.

The WWF need to try to built up as many main eventers as they can instead of depend on one Superstar to sell tickets and get ratings. I'm not worried about the WWF because of guys like RVD, Booker T, Rhyno, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Kane. People said that the WWF would die without Hulk in '93. The Superstars of the New Generation had different ideas. New Generation wrestlers like Bret Hart, Triple H, Rocky Maiva, Mankind, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and the Undertaker help lay the foundation for WWF Attitude. Just like the superstars of today are going to lay the foundation for something even better than WWF Attitude.

[Jowy Blight]

Heh, I haven't watched the show since the McMahon/HHH era thing. I felt it went on for far too long, and I watch DBZ, you would think I would be used to things being dragged out. :D I think that this is what happened to a lot of viewers, they simply got tired of the slow pace of the story or the matches just started getting old.

Oh well, maybe this just happened to me.

[Sheamon]

and the fact that Vince never restored the traditional roster after he "won back" the other 50% from Flair makes it seem like that this roster change may be permanent. It's stupid, and quite frankly, it's one of Vince's fatal moves for the future of his company.

I certainly agree that they need to have some storyline way to make this split roster thing make sense (after all it was split because Flair owned half the company), but since the roster is SO overcrowded they need the roster split there. Now I personally wouldn't mind melding them back together and firing tons of people on the roster (Hurricane Helms, Kidman, Tommy Dreamer, all the Tough Enough winners, Terrie, Ivory, Torrie, Molly, Trish, Hardcore Holly, Crash Holly, Billy, Chuck, Tajiri, Mark Henry, D-Lo, Eddie Guerrerro, etc...), but we all know that won't happen. So unfortunately the split roster thing has to stay.

[EinBebop]

Originally posted by Memphis Bleek
The Superstars of the New Generation had different ideas. New Generation wrestlers like Bret Hart, Triple H, Rocky Maiva, Mankind, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and the Undertaker help lay the foundation for WWF Attitude.

I don't think that Triple H and I know that Rocky would not be considered a major "New Generation" player. First of all, I agree that the New Generation began with Bret Hart's first title reign, but I don't think that it really took off until a year-and-a-half later, with the second win. Your major players for this era were, and I think this is in order of importance: Bret Hart, the Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Sid, and Razor Ramon, and Yokozuna. Not to downplay the abilities or importance of their rival/allies, but these were the guys that people would pay to see, that could have been legitimate world champions at any time. Your second string would include Owen Hart, Mankind, Vader, Ahmed Johnson, British Bulldog, Jeff Jarrett, and Goldust.

It really pains me that I can't include any tag teams up there, but the New Generation was kind of a dark era for tag teams; the only time the division was vaguely interesting was when Owen Hart was mucking around in it. One of these days, I'm going to have to write a long discourse on tag teacs. But back to my point..

I don't think that Triple H could be considered more than a third string guy until Degeneration X started. The "Attitude era", in my opinion, started with Austin's King of the Ring win. DX latched onto Attitude more than a year later, and the Attitude era culminated with Michaels and Austin meeting at Wrestlemania; it became an unstoppable force at this point.

Obviously, by this same reasoning, I don't consider Austin a New Generation player either. He was a WWF nobody until King of the Ring, where he began taking down the New Generation.

Rocky's first PPV match at Survivor Series, the same night that Austin fought Bret Hart the first time. Coincidentally, that night was also Yokozuna's last WWF PPV match. One era ended, and a brighter one began.

Of course, this is all debatable. But it's my view of history. :)

[EinBebop]

I've really had no opinion on "how to fix" the WWE at this point, but after posting my Smackdown thoughts, I gotta think that at least some of the problem has been that fans are tired of the same old faces day in and day out. Considering how many new guys WWE is throwing out all of a sudden, perhaps marketing research has told them the same thing. And only the greatest storylines ever could cover up the problem. Obviously, that's not going to happen.

Problem is, they can't all become stars overnight, and if you push the too Brockly, err, quickly, you could hurt them in the long run. I gotta say that I like all of the new faces that we've seen since Wrestlemania.

I think that at this point my favorite think about WWE is going to become watching the new guys develop. Hopefully, the fanbase that's still around will be drawn into this as well. I thnk that a year from now, the fresh blood will inspire new storylines, and the product will be exciting again.

[GoufCustom]

It's the cycle slump that wrestling encounters in certin years.

[TheScarecrow]

First off, when a wrestling federation goes from making big money, as WWF/WWE was from 1998 to 2000, to the declines that WWE is going through today, it isn't because "it just happens". Vince and WWE MADE IT HAPPEN with bad decisions that resulted in a bad product. A lot of wrestling companies get to that point, and even go out of business because they continue to put out a bad product.

When any form of entertainment, whether it's pro wrestling, movies, or any show on TV, puts on a bad product, people tune out. Few people watch bad TV for very long before they get fed up and not watch.

Vince screwed up several storylines that had MONEY written all over them (WCW/ECW Invasion, nWo nvasion of WWF, Flair vs. McMahon). He failed to give serious pushes to guys like Jericho and Angle to the top of the main events (just like he's failing to do with RVD now), thus leaving us with only Rock, HHH, Austin, and Undertaker to really be taken seriously as headliners. Storylines and characters got weaker and weaker (the return of gimmicky characters with no depth, like Mighty Molly and The Hurricane, and feuds over shampoo deals, for example). That is why WWE is in the state it is in today.

The 1980's boom period with Hulkamania ended in the early 90's for the same reason... a bad product that no one wanted to see. Fans wanted Mr. Perfect and Rick Rude and Bret Hart and Shawn Micheals on top, while Vince kept feeding us Hogan and Warrior time and time again, along with the same old monster heels and evil foreiners. Storylines and character development got worse and worse, and business got worse and worse along with it.

Things wouldn't start to get better until Vince McMahon updated his product to what the fans wanted to see and pushed the wrestlers that the fans wanted to see at the top to the top. Until Vince does the same thing now, business will continue to be bad, and might even get worse.

It won't just *magically* get better.

[Joker1238]

Give me the likes of JAck Dempsey, Joe Louis, Mikcky Walker, and Rocky Marciano any day over WWE.

If you want combat sports, boxing is were it is.

[Tapout]

Give me the likes of JAck Dempsey, Joe Louis, Mikcky Walker, and Rocky Marciano any day over WWE.

If you want combat sports, boxing is were it is.
I doubt it was necessary to resurrect a three year old thread for that.

And UFC > boxing.

[EinBebop]

Give me the likes of JAck Dempsey, Joe Louis, Mikcky Walker, and Rocky Marciano any day over WWE.Is boxing still around?

Ditto what Brother Dirtbag said.

[Kurtman]

*Shrugs* Me? I don't really care that much. I always hated wrestling to begin with and always will.

[Beat]

The one thing I've noticed is that wrestling's popularity waxes and wanes depending on the time period. Right now, it's waning, because the old guard of pop culture icons is moving on, and a new one has yet to come in.

[halinar]

If you have no recollection of the Gobbledygooker or Mantaur, then you have no idea how much worst things can get. :D\


I remember those times... this week's whole hospital skit was on par with the kind of crap from the 80's in every way shape and form.

I've been watching for almost 20 years now and it's painful to watch the WWF any more.

[Robin2099]

People always say that wrestling goes through cycles where it's hot, then it will eventually die down again and I think that is complete crap. Most of the time downward spirals are caused by managment making television which isn't compelling and oftentimes drag out and repeat themselves. For instance, do we really need to se JR get fired again for the 3rd time, or having another Austin/McMahon feud only instead of Vince we get Steph. The biggest problem is they don't know there audience and know how to change with the times, WCW being a textbook example. If WCW had quit beating the NWO till it was dust and kept pushing the old wrestlers instead of the new ones that fans wanted to see then they would likely still be around today.

[Squall]

I have no interest in wrestling myself, but I can understand how its losing its popularity would concern the fans. Since football is my personal favorite sport, I'd hate it if the NFL and NCAA Football started losing popularity.

But, like all things in the entertainment world, the fans have to help spread the word to keep wrestling alive! Post on wrestling message boards. Wear wrestling t-shirts and hats in public. Let aquaintances and potential fans borrow your wrestling DVDs to sample the entertainment first hand. No matter how much technology we have, nothing beats word of mouth -- the ultimate form of advertising! :p

[SirLemming]

Let me be another person to point out that this thread is three years old and therefore it's kind of misguided to be discussing this article as if it were written today, even though it's probably true that wrestling is still losing popularity.

[The Penguin]

Yeah, I think we're done here.