by Stephen Kerr-Robinson

Created on: September 30, 2008   Last Updated: April 30, 2011

The question that has no doubt been weighing on everyone's mind for a number of years. A question in which there is no simple answer for and some cases just theories for so you could say no real answer for. But I will do all I can to answer the question to the best of my abilities.

Wrestlemania 17, Stone Cold Steve Austin did the unthinkable and accepted help from Vince McMahon his arch nemesis to win the WWF title. My reasoning for mentioning this is it was the beginning of a storyline and after that storyline ended that's when wrestling depreciated for me. And at this time the death of WCW was fresh in our minds, it seems that people seem to think the death of WCW was to blame for the decrease in the wrestling market.

And I am guilty of thinking this as well, but after much consideration I really don't think that the death of WCW can be the reason that the wrestling market has declined. I mean you can't seriously tell me that from mid-999 all the way through to the end of 2000 WCW gave Vince any troubles at all in terms of ratings, PPV buys or merchandise sales. And when people say the death of WCW it just wasn't the same, I assume that they mean the lack of competition and not just WCW. After all it was the strong competition that got millions tuned in any way, but when you look back at the quality of the WCW back in 1999 and 2000 you realize that they couldn't be considered real competition. And through all this WWF only grew stronger, so I fail to believe that WCW had anything to do with the decline in the wrestling market.

I have pondered over this question for a long time though, and have run it through my head several times. And the end result of trying to figure this out has got me nowhere really as I just came up with more questions than what I started with. Questions like when did the decline start? Who's to blame? What is to blame? So that really didn't help me all that well.

But after long consideration the most accurate theory I thought of to the question whatever happened to Pro Wrestling? And what made it so lacklustre in comparison to recent years was progression. I know that may seem a little unorthodox, and questions may rise but just think about it for a moment there is only so much progression an industry can have before it turns on itself.

Think about it this way WWF really started to pick up in 1997 during the Attitude era. And as each day, week, month, year passed by the wrestling industry started to resemble an inflated bubble. And

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