Why is pro wrestling on the decline?

During the 90s it was hard to be a kid and not enjoy Wrestling. The WWF was a mandatory watch across the world. Kids and teenagers used to exchange WWF trading cards in schools and occasionally re-enacted popular battle scenes of their favourite heroes.

Fast forward a decade and there was a steady decline in wrestling lovers all over the world. Why did the beloved sport lose its audience?

The short answer to that question is the Internet. And no, it is not because of matches becoming available via torrents.

While the rest of the world was happy to watch the intense wrestling matches, some people were keen on figuring out what happens on the inside. In the industry, they were known as smarks. If you asked a casual fan whether wrestling was real, he would sit and argue for hours on why WWF is real. And the stars themselves never ever admitted otherwise.

 During the glory years of wrestling, the smarks’ activity was limited to their towns and cities. These guys knew all about the scripting and sometimes they had advance copies of what would happen in the upcoming fight.

 But as the age of internet dawned, the barriers of communication became smaller. Almost anyone could connect with the entire world, thanks to the IRC and message groups.

This ease of communication allowed many casual fans to get a glimpse inside the WWF world. They were not ready to for it, though.

 Slowly, the fans got to know about the scripting in Wrestling matches. They realized all the fights, and rivalries were nothing more than a movie like sequence. The magic was no longer true. This disillusioned a lot of fans, and they lost interest in the sport.

And thus came the decline of scripted wrestling products.