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Wrestling's wane in popularity began in Japan when former wrestlers started opening MMA gyms and the eyes became glued to the attraction. Wrestling tried changing by incorporating more MMA techniques, styles, gimmicks and other bits borrowed from it, but it wasn't working and the people Inoki built up to challenge the MMA phenomena all ate shit in embarrassing fashion. There was a slow climb back out of that hole but its never been the same as it was in the 80's and 90s.
Meanwhile in America, UFC was around for over a decade before it really took off in the early 2000's. From there, you saw the Ultimate Fighter and it being hyped and promoted to hell on Spike TV and it just went from there. People simply gravitated towards it and it didn't help that at the time, Rock and Stone Cold had left and Triple H buried everyone else who had star potential into the ground. After Benoit, the industry changed in a different direction and the style is completely different with all the vets either dead or not around to teach the younger gen how to do it. Now wrestling and MMA are in spot where there are no stars or the one's they had are old or coked out, there are more bars hosting MMA P.P.V.'s than wrestling ones. With covid and shit, it got really worse.
Now we're in a situation where wrestlings core audience shifted from 18-35 testosterone, alcohol fuelled demographic back to the family friendly Saturday morning cartoon demographic it had in the 80s because mom and dad and 2 kids are more tickets sold than you and maybe on of your buddies and maybe your girlfriend. MMA swooped in and filled that niche and it really hasn't left since, but it also hit its peak and has been sliding down hard since. I couldn't name anyone who is champion or any fight that has happened in a long time.
Who knows what the future's gonna hold?
