It’s no secret the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), a professional wrestling promotion, is currently reaching the end of its days. 

With Mixed martial arts (MMA) and boxing grabbing all the headlines, WWE seems like an afterthought nowadays since it’s not actual authentic fighting.

According to a Feb. 21 HowStuffWorks article, professional wrestling is a predetermined and scripted competition, and unless WWE does something fast to promote viewership, it will never reach the mainstream audience it once had.

Recently, WWE’s viewership has been declining to historical lows, according to a Cageside Seats Sept. 15 article.

Cageside Seats is part of SB Nation, which is a sports blogging site that’s owned by Vox Media.

Although people know what WWE is, not many people can openly say they watch the matches. 

WWE announced its 2021 pay-per-view event SummerSlam as a major success with 55% more viewers than the 2020 SummerSlam and a record high 51,326 in-person attendees at the matches.

But, compared to MMA’s staggering 700,000-plus viewership figures, according to MMAFighting.com, it still didn’t do as well. 

SummerSlam is an annual pay-per-view event in August, one of many WWE events that happens throughout the year.

Yes, this previous year broke records but that doesn’t paint the whole picture for the company.

Even with WWE announcing recent success including SummerSlam, it’s going to hit rock bottom and retire at its current rate.

WWE has been bleeding viewership gradually since the early 2000s, according to a May 13, 2019 Deadspin article.    

The only way WWE is going to make it out of this runt is by working on its storytelling to keep viewers engaged. 

When WrestleMania, the wrestling equivalent to the NFL’s Super Bowl, pushed the storyline of Mark “The Undertaker” Calaway losing to Brock Lesnar, fans were completely shocked. 

The Undertaker had a 21 WrestleMania win streak that was broken on April 6, 2014 that lasted 23 years. 

According to a Nov. 19, 2020 Sports Illustrated article, The Undertaker said Lesnar didn’t need the victory and the loss wouldn’t have affected his star power. 

Even though it was exciting to see The Undertaker lose his notorious win streak, it surprisingly didn’t affect WWE viewership. 

WWE has been stagnating with the lack of professional wrestling promotions, not being able to reach a mass audience.

To make matters worse, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), an emerging professional wrestling promotion, made its debut on the Turner Network Television (TNT) on May 25, 2019 taking even more viewership away from WWE.

The last time TNT had a wrestling promotion was World Championship Wrestling (WCW), WWE’s former wrestling promotion rival, more than 18 years ago.

Recently, popular wrestler Phil “CM Punk” Brooks has made a return to wrestling after leaving WWE on Jan. 26, 2014. CM Punk’s match on AEW Rampage on Aug. 23 gave it a high amount of views with more than about a million viewers that night, according to Variety’s Aug. 23 article.

However, in the following weeks, AEW Rampage’s viewership fell down to less than 696,000 viewers on average, according to Forbes’ Sept. 8 article.

While AEW is still emerging as a wrestling promotion, it’s hard to say where it will be able to stand against WWE to help drive back TV viewer ratings.

The lack of new and fresh talent replacing iconic veterans of the promotion, who can draw people to watch professional wrestling, has hugely contributed to the freefall of WWE.

Wrestling veteran Mick Foley, known for playing the characters of Mankind, Cactus Jack and Dude Love, has noted  WWE “is no longer the place for talent to aspire to,” according to Bleacher Report’s Sept 11 article.

If a wrestling legend such as Foley spites WWE for character talent creation, maybe it’s a wake up call for WWE to start thinking on how to write story lines and create characters to draw people in.

WWE used to have a huge reach but it’s no longer what it once was. 

Professional wrestler Scott “Scott Steiner” Rechsteiner said it best in his May 2017 YouTube promotion: “The numbers don’t lie and they spell out disaster.”