A bloke born in the ’90s could never deny the fact of being a wrestling fan. The adrenaline rushes we experienced just by hearing the entrance theme song of our favourite wrestler. We owe a major part of our childhood & adulthood to this most entertaining television show to ever air during our generation. We, as a kid, remember rushing to our homes at 5 in the evening to experience a couple of hour of impeccable entertainment. From imitating the Triple-H’s iconic water spitting act to funny yet versatile Rock’s speech, we still remember it all. In the early days, it was the Monday night RAW and Friday night Smackdown which later on extended to Afterburn and NXT. However, we couldn’t agree more that the quality of WWE has degraded over the years, whether realising it was all staged, or our favourite character left, WWE failed to revive what is actually was. Going back to the time, when it all started, let’s take a look at the birth of this longest-running TV show that changes that entertainment industry forever.

The WWE was founded by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt in 1952 with the name Capitol Wrestling Corporation or CWC with headquarter presently located in Stanford, Connecticut. Over the years, CWC underwent numerous changes in its name, World Wide Wrestling Foundation (WWWF) to World Wrestling Foundation (WWF) to finally World Wrestling Entertainment in 2002. Undoubtedly, WWE is the largest professional wrestling company in the world. In 1980, Vincent K. McMahon, the son of Vincent J. McMahon, founded Titan Sports, Inc. and applied trademarks for the initials "WWF". After taking charge of the organization, without wasting any second, Vince worked to get WWF programming on syndicated television all across America. In buying the rights from his dad, in an interview, Vince quoted, “In the old days, there were wrestling fiefdoms all over the country, each with its own little lord in charge. Each little lord respected the rights of his neighbouring little lord. No takeovers or raids were allowed. There were maybe 30 of these tiny kingdoms in the U.S. and if I hadn't bought out my dad, there would still be 30 of them, fragmented and struggling. I, of course, had no allegiance to those little lords”.

The WWF experience the Golden Era from 1983 to 1993 wherein the professional wrestling industry boomed. Post-1993 to 1997, the company experienced the New Generation Era which gave us superstars such as Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Dan Spivey, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, The Undertaker, Diesel, Owen Hart, Crush, Tatanka, Lex Luger, Brian Blair and Rick Martel. Now, you must be wondering why you haven’t heard all these names. It may be because you might be an Attitude Era fan. So, you’ve heard that, right?

The Attitude Era existed from 1997 to 2002, that most famous era in the history of WWF. This era is only responsible for making what WWE is today and took WWF to a whole new level with more realistic storylines and characters. This frame period of five-years gave us unforgettable superstars namely Triple-H, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, Chyna, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, X-Pac, Mick Foley, Kane and D Generation X. In 1997, WWF released its scratch logo which inevitably became the company’s signature throughout the Attitude Era. WWF recovered in its ratings and popularity, with Raw Is War finally thumping Nitro for the first time in 84 weeks on April 13, 1998. Ratings would continue to rise through 1998 and 1999 a 12-minute match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Undertaker drew a 9.5 rating on June 28, 1999. It currently stands as the highest-rated segment in Raw history. In the year 1999, WWF came up with the secondary project “Smackdown”.

During the window of 2002 to 2008, the world witnessed the emergence of the Ruthless Aggression Era. The roster was divided among RAW and Smackdown through draft lottery. Referees, managers, commentators, became show exclusive. Eventually, in the year 2003 and 2004, the biggest superstars of the industry Stone Cold and The Rock left the company. Consequently, Brock Lesner and Randy Orton went on to become the youngest WWE Champion and World Heavyweight Champion respectively. It was this era when events like Wrestlemania and Royal Rumble had started gaining popularity. During this era, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, John Cena, Batista, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, and Rob Van Dam were also given main event opportunities and all ended up becoming multiple-time world champions as we know them today.

A popular phrase that goes by “What goes up, must come down” became a nightmare for the management of the WWE. Over the last two-three years, the participation and engagement of WWE’s audience have diminished drastically. The reasons for this decline are various and yet debatable. The downsloping live attendance raised an alarm to Vince; however, he assured the investor that he was aware of it and had a solution. Vince quoted, “Live events always have been a barometer as to how well we're doing. Notwithstanding that, we throw around this word 're-imagine' a lot. But we know what's wrong with our live events, and it's somewhat of a-- I don't necessarily want to call it [an] antiquated presentation but we know to fix things. If something's wrong and you don't know how to fix things, you're in trouble. We know how to fix that, and we'll be re-imagining those live events very, very shortly. We'll see a pretty good turnaround I think in short order”. The live attendance kept on falling 5,400 to 5,000, 4,900 to 4,500 fans last year.

Here are a few points for you to ponder upon which we think could a reason behind the decline in ratings:

• Ignoring the negativity and boos that Roman Reigns is welcomed to every week, the management is still pushing too hard to make him the new face. Not sure why? The management must acknowledge that this isn’t working for them at all.
• There is no champion at all. Brock Lesner, the champion of odd occasions, would come and go at any part of the day for the title. We already know that he has been a UFC champion for a long time and would thrash any wrestler in the entire roster at any point of time. This ploy again is not working.
• The real talent is getting wasted. What fans feel is WWE is not giving deserving superstars the due credit and limelight. And of course, the much-needed push.
• Remember the feud between Vince and Stone Cold which always kept you on the edge of your seats? The most interesting feuds WWE universe has ever witnessed. Unfortunately, Stephanie McMahon hasn’t been able to come even close to generating excitement. Introducing Ronda Rousey was a good move but that failed too.
• Bad writing. You can’t blame the wrestlers much if the script, promos, skits or segment sucks. Clearly lack of quality storylines.
• Too predictable. The storyline is predictable and for unknown reasons, they’re not changing the “Scripts” or the structure of the programme.
• The decreasing interest of the audience in professional wrestling has to considered as well.

Well, to argue as to what went wrong and what didn’t is highly debatable. With the incoming of other professional wrestling companies such All Elite Wrestling or AEW, WWE appears to be falling behind and keeping up with the competition. These days we barely find any bloke from the ’90s who still follow WWE on a regular basis. Are you still a WWE fan? Do let us know.