Wrestling: Why is it not popular anymore?
I remember having a classmate that is a big fan of wrestling. He watches wrestling all the time and tries to imitate their moves. However, I can recently see a decline in its popularity as I don’t see as many kids watching it anymore. Is wrestling not popular anymore? Is wrestling in a state of decline?
Wrestling is not being popular anymore simply because many people think of it as fake. Furthermore, competition comes into play with many people can now having access to more realistic matches and fights such as UFC and MMA. Lastly, Wrestling has fewer advertising campaigns compared to before.
Why exactly is wrestling losing its popularity? This is a question that often popped up in your mind if you are an unconditional wrestling fan. This post will talk about this topic in greater detail. What’s happening to wrestling as a sport and if it is really on its way out.
Is Wrestling Still Popular?
Wrestling is still popular however, it has been on a steady decline. It was not as popular as it once was in the 1980s or 1990s because a lot of people think that it’s just fake. This is especially true since you can find more realistic matches right now such as MMA or UFC.
If we look back at the time, wrestling was a popular sport in the ’80s and ’90s.
That was a magical time for wrestling, but now you must want to know that; what happened in recent decades? That wrestling has not that famous as it was.
Don’t get me wrong, I was born in 1994 so I’m not old yet. The classmate I was talking about is in the early 2000s. Do I can also say that Wrestling is still popular in the early 2000s.
While it is true you can never revive that aura of fame again and even could not expect it to be as trendy as it was.
I think this includes Wrestling.
Wrestling is a combo of different fighting techniques such as throws, joint locks, pins, and clinch fighting. These grappling types are very famous among wrestling lovers.
Basically, wrestling also has many different types like Judo, sambo, Greco-Roman, Folk, and freestyle.
This sport had driven people crazy in love with wrestling in past times. But at the present day, this art of combat sport is losing its popularity increases.
And the reasons behind this reduction is majorly Indy promotions of this sports.
Wrestling has no longer viewership and sponsors to establish its popularity. The wrestling industry has no big stars like Rock, Foley, Hogan, Sting, and Austin who can hook their fans to watch wrestling.
And if there is no one to watch it then how can the wrestle industry run and get fame?
No doubt, they have a talent house of different trained women and men. But if they will not take some progressive steps, how can this industry work.
This argumentative question has some primary reasons to evaluate the answer. For this purpose, Let’s start with the history of wrestling.
Wrestling Origins:
In 1980, the United States had promoted wrestling agilely level. However, Japan was also the second big country that takes this sport to its height.
Although, like England & Australia many countries of the world had different forms of wrestling. WWE that becomes WWF later had a magnificent advertising campaign at that time.
The Effect of Advertisement & Promotion on Wrestling’s popularity
Vince McMahon had marketed WWF on a professional level. He advertised WWF to the people and ask them to support wrestling.
Even though, to promote wrestling, he applied some advertising methods such as WWF tags & logos on clothes, cartoons, toys, video games. It was all advertising tactics that made WWF the most popular show.
They attracted their old fans to watch WWF as a differently interesting sport of the world. People became crazy after watching such an entertaining show that has a drama along with the sports activity.
Till 1990 it was the most-watched and the most famous show of wrestling.
We had many big shiny stars like Austin, Rock, Hogan who created havoc all over WWF shows. They were all very charismatic wrestlers that the world had never seen.
If we look at the current situation WWF has not enough stronghold on wrestling that WWE had in the last few decades.
WWF still has a huge fan base, but many fans are no longer interested to watch WWF.
They got tired of the whole fake concept of wrestling now.
However, they have fewer investors or advertising investments. That was not enough to promote this sport according to current social-media attractions.
They had not a hot storyline to convince investors to invest in wrestling like Austin, Four Horsemen, Dusty Rhodes, and McMahon.
More precisely, if the hook is not there, then how can you make people turned into wrestling again?
Why do people stop watching wrestling?
People stop watching wrestling because most people think of them as fake which includes only stunts. Furthermore, some even think of wrestling as cartoonish. Furthermore, there is just more competition available to wrestling compared to before. Lastly, there are more and more people who are against violent sports.
Profession wrestling is still in demand but the viewership of this sport has declined its level.
Especially, before this pandemic, companies were running their business on a certain level. But after this economic turbulence, WWE TV ratings got down.
According to the 2020 data, wrestling stock was trending down. (The value of $38.82 on 24 September to -45.2% versus ($70.81) of last year on September 23, 2019).
But what are the real facts that why are people get distant from watching wrestling?
With the collective results of 18 years old youngsters to 417 adults, many people have different perceptions.
Such as 30% of people think, the product is cartoonish & 29% of people call WWF wrestling fake and having a less interesting storyline. In addition, 28% of people don’t like wrestling characters, while 26% of people said that these characters are not matchable.
Similarly, other people considered wrestling as a violent sport.
They have claimed that people who used to watch professional wrestling become more aggressive, smoked, and unprotected.
These are the factors involved in consistently decreasing wrestling’s viewership rate.
Furthermore, it is also important to know that with the advent of games and computers, people are now just hooked on other things.
That’s why more and more people would just consider playing computer games and kids are not being interested in watching TV anymore.
This has a huge impact on wrestling and I think, they really need to pivot.
Is Professional Wrestling dying?
Professional wrestling may be slowly dying but it won’t fully want out. This is because as long as TV is still there, it will always be available for anyone to watch. Furthermore, there is an emotional attachment from fans of wrestling which would always support the sport.
According to the latest reviews, I believe Pro wrestling is not dying.
It is one of the all-time favorite sports, but nowadays it becomes more segmented for people as they have many options to watch the original content.
But still, some shows like Ring of honor are high in demand in Japan. People have more attractive tv deals with highly paid promotions and advertisements to watch.
Well, many other factors are also value able to this argument.
WWE fan’s emotional attachment with the players is also a worthwhile factor. Many big stars of wrestling are not performing in WWE and the fans take it less enthralling to watch wrestling just by watching their favorite wrestler on tv.
Remember my classmate I said in the introduction? Until now, he is still supporting wrestling and watches it every time.
There are many people like him so I don’t really believe wrestling will fully wane out.
But I am fully aware of its decline.
A reason why wrestling may be slowing down is because of the lack of viewership.
Wrestling has lower media ratings, fewer promoters, and fewer investors that can be the major aspect of pro wrestling’s decline.
Additionally, the less captivating content of WWE with fake storylines and cartoonish & dramatic scripts can also be a reason for the destruction of the industry.
On the contrary, this is a fact that Wrestling has become a popular niche for the audience these days. People are more likely to talk about the real facts about making this industry revive and more demanding as it was.
People refer to the wrestling industry as dying due to their perception of looking the attitude era. They are following that ruthless aggression era which is really not the way it should be.
As an entertainment sports industry, pro wrestling had ups and down in its popularity but it doesn’t mean that people can compare this to the last 20 years’ ratings.
These ratings are not comparable because tv industry has significantly changed in 20 years.
In conclusion, Pro wrestling is not dying. If it is just about ratings or considering WWE as the whole industry. We can still make these sports the way we want to watch them.
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