I saw an interesting question on a reddit forum where someone posed whether or not pro-wrestling is as popular to 50 years prior. It felt like one of those AI prompt questions but I think it’s an interesting one to delve into because of the various lenses one needs to examine the current state vs the previous state. Also, the idea of popularity can be misconstrued as having other meanings such as watching through a single medium, attendance of arenas, the rabidness of fans and where wrestling stands as a mainstream form of entertainment. In this post, I want to address the idea of wrestling’s popularity and compare it to a few other periods where wrestling had its peaks.
First, when one says wrestling being popular, what does that entail exactly? Does that encompass a per person ticket sale or perhaps the overall revenue generated from ticket sales? Does that include PPV buyrates as opposed to the overall number of eyeballs that consume wrestling? These are some basic questions we must examine in doing a proper comparison.
Often you’ll hear the WWE talk about ticket sales and numbers for an arena. One of the SNME events I believed did some record gates for the WWE. However, the attendance for that particular show was around 17k. You have to compare that attendance number against a show like Wrestlemania 3 because the attendance at WM3 was far higher. At the same time, you need to account for inflation and the sheer cost of the current WWE ticket.
Another thing to examine is the total reach the WWE (and wrestling as a whole) has compared to pre-internet times. If we first think about even pre-TV days, the only method for watching wrestling was through attending a show. And those territories were local to a region which meant those fans might not even have access to a normal TV. As a result in those days, the fans would probably tune in to either radio or drive down to the event itself. In the latter case, with kayfabe alive and information about the business itself being closely guarded, more wrestling fans were inclined to believe in it and had a far greater attachment to what was going on. So I would be inclined to say that at least in that period, there would not have existed the concept of a casual wrestling fan.
Once TV, cable, etc. began introducing wrestling to a larger audience, the need to attend a show died down as fans could watch their favorites from their TV. To compensate, promotions like the WWF began using squash matches as a way to market their product and “encourage” fans to see the live events or pay via cable, etc. where the important matches occurred. In a way, TV would help to broaden/diversify wrestling’s audience and increase the main stream appeal (namely the WWF’s) but begin the creation of the idea of a casual fan.
The push for merchandising especially aiming it at kids (along with cartoons on Saturday mornings) meant that the WWF would follow a model similar to McDonalds with their Happy Meals: breed them young. I wouldn’t call this aspect part of the creation of the casual fan but more like the increased mainstream acceptance and commercialization of wrestling. Add Vince McMahon’s vision of the Rock-n-Wrestling connection where wrestling began entering the realm of pop culture (and most of this still was under the WWF)
However, with the increase in main stream media presence, wrestling was not without its critics and set backs. The infamous “Fight Back” TV show at one time exposed the inner workings of pro-wrestling. While hard core wrestling fans would probably not care about such a show, the idea of wrestling being fake started to really make the rounds in the mid 80s which hurt wrestling. Then there was the infamous steroid trial which came around the time when sports were being examined by the government. Around that time, there was a famous football player named Lyle Alzado who admitted to using steroids and attributed them to his eventual passing. With such a high profile case in the media, it gave a very sour look at wrestling especially with McMahon going on trial in 1993.
It wasn’t until the Monday Night Wars came about where a newfound surge in wrestling’s popularity occurred again. Around that time, the internet began to become more readily available and wrestling’s platform of choice was cable TV. However, in that period, many of the fans that were “groomed” during the 80s boom now saw their favorites such as Hogan, Savage, Piper aligning with or against the latest breed of stars from the WWF. Then on the other channel, a core group of highly talented wrestlers as well as a incredibly motivated Vince McMahon stepped up to make the wrestling’s hottest era known as the Attitude Era.
With the Attitude Era and Monday Night Wars combined with the NWO, wrestling felt like it peaked in popularity. Attendances were higher, merchandise was bigger, the numbers for cable TV were incredible along with PPV buyrates. Wrestling definitely hit a main stream peak around then with people like Steve Austin, the Rock and the NWO, etc. being common place. You could walk to a mall and see people wearing NWO shirts or Austin 3:16 shirts, etc.
Yet can we truly call this the peak of wrestling’s popularity?
Fast forward to the present. The WWE recently made a huge deal in moving their prime show of Raw to Netflix. The chief positive is the simultaneous global viewing that a livestreaming platform Netflix can provide for an organization like the WWE. That’s unheard of. Add to that, the various forms of alternative methods to access content whether it’s live or otherwise such as social media or underground methods (e.g. BitTorrent). The full methods for accounting for total true viewing compared to the days of cable and the Nielson Company are gone.
However, that brings us back to the concept of the casual fan. Because of the amount of ways a person can access information on pro-wrestling, there’s no real way to understand just how rabid that person’s love of pro-wrestling actually is. For instance, I’m a casual fan these days but I would’ve been considered more hardcore during the mid 80s and mid to late 90s. Back then I would religiously watch everything I could find because the amount of content was more limited. These days, I find that I’m not as interested in the content itself and care more about the direction of certain people.
Part of that is the focus of where wrestling has gone. At the height of my fandom for pro-wrestling, I generally would gravitate towards the wrestlers themselves not the promotion. I felt the wrestlers were more unique and interesting, having something different to offer to get me invested in what they were doing. The modern form of wrestling though placed more emphasis on the match style rather than the ideas going into a match and the personalities for the participants. As a result, I feel like I’ve seen everything and very few wrestlers show me something where I feel impressed when it comes to the moves.
I think with the current HHH regime, the overall product has improved, although I’m still not as invested in the matches themselves compared to the stories. And because of the sheer volume of people in the WWE, it’s rare for me to find anyone who really stands out. But HHH did manage to pinpoint the key for what the company does: it sells emotion. I think the WWE does well what it purports to sell. For that they’ve managed to go global and feel bigger overall.
That said, I think pro-wrestling is more about “something to do” as a “cool thing” than a must do thing. Like when the Monday Night Wars was going on, I had to watch every episode to find out what development was going to happen next. I didn’t watch it because I wanted to be cool or take my kid (which I don’t have BTW) to a show. I don’t think the current batch of wrestling fans are rabid compared to the previous eras. It’s more like going to a concert where the singer requests the audience to participate in joining him during the chorus. It’s fun to do, you get your shirt, maybe you get on camera or see your favorite, etc. But it lacks the same emotional impact that pre-kayfabe wrestling had. So that’s where I think the real difference in popularity comes in. Yes, wrestling has probably the most eyeballs due to the various methods of consumption available. But it lacks the same dedicated passion on a wide scale compared to previous years. Outside of those rare fanatics who have unlimited funds somehow and follow wrestling everywhere, there’s no way that wrestling now shares that same drive as before.