I agree with Badgenome. At this point the WWE can't create stars, and they can't steal stars because there is no one to steal from... and they just keep getting in the of the people who create themselves.  Outside Cena and Punk all the best stars now are old timers that hardly ever show up.  (Rock, Undertaker etc.)

Zack Ryder got himself over, so they took over and ruined it... Somehow Fandango made his gimic work... WWE overplayed it and ruined it. Daniel Bryan got over and they've tried to ruin that.

As for MMA? I don't think that really is a factor. Boxing... Boxing is dying a faster death then wrestling, I'm shocked you know anybody who still talks about it.

Very few people ever watched Wrestling for the fake fighting... it was more for the rest of the drama. It's why action cartoons aren't just 100% fighting etc. It's the storytelling that pulls it all together (which has also sucked.)

WWE hasn't had mainstream appeal in years. Most of which killed their buzz was the deaths of Benoit and Guerrero. I mean I'm talking solely WWE, but their ratings have been going downhill for years. I'm not sure how they are financially, but I don't think they're doing too bad.

TNA on the other hand... They've released so much talent, wrestlers have reported that they have been paid 2 months late. They were never competition for WWE, but now it looks like they are just bleeding money. I don't see them being around in the next 3 years. Although, I said that back in 09.

tna was doing good in 2009 though, they had their best ratings and had a good champ aj styles. THey were also doing well in house shows i believe, it wasnt till hogan came in and ruined shiz

Wrestling has slowly started to suck, and die, ever since WCW and the Attitude Era ended. Now, they're trying to keep it PG. They also keep pushing the same damn wrestlers over and over. It's time to give Cena a rest. But instead, when something becomes popular, they ALWAYS have to try in force him into the angle. When Punk was getting popular by dissing the state of the WWE, "Quick, get Cena out there." When Zack Ryder started becoming popular through Youtube, "Quick, get Cena out there."

They also don't have very many unique personalities, anymore. They have all become a buzz cut/short haired white guy blob. Where's the Hulk Hogans? The Undertakers? The Stings? And when someone starts to become popular on their own, like Ryder, they have to step in and fuck it all up just because its not who they want to push or how they want them to be pushed.

And don't even get me started on the shitty story lines. The 80s to early 00s were the best time for wrestling fans. Sadly, I think it's still downhill from here.

Damn its sad to see morgan go after watching him in tna for a long time now. And holy shit why the hell did they gotten rid of prichard. He was the cure to the virus that was vince russo. If they want to get rid of people get rid of taz his commentary sucks ass!!!

I think MMA might have helped the decline by providing an alternative that is more attractive to some people when wrestling was already in the shitter, but I don't think it's simply a case of, "Who needs fake fighting when there's real fighting now?" The worst thing to happen to American wrestling is simply that Vince McMahon finally secured the monopoly he'd always wanted and was instantly (and may still be) of the opinion that, "Now WCW fans will have no choice but to watch our product." It's like if Xbox 360 had achieved PS2 levels of domination and Microsoft felt no pressure not to go through with all the Xbone policies. Of course, it's an incredibly stupid mindset as entertainment is probably the most fungible of commodities. People may like wrestling, but they can either watch it... or not.

The rise of Pride FC didn't seem to hurt Japanese wrestling at the time because the Japanese promotions were still capable of putting on a compelling product. NJPW had always dabbled in mixed matches and promoting professional wrestling as simply the strongest martial art in the world, anyway, so they were able to co-opt Pride's rise, and that of MMA in general, by having crossover matches between pro wrestlers and MMA guys.

In some ways this all just seems a very typical, cyclical thing. The '80s saw a massive boom. The '90s kind of lived off of that boom as a lot of guys had gotten into the business were starting to come into their own, and you had an explosion of stylistic diversity with a lot of promotions offering an incredible variety of styles. But those indies really may have just been the last gasp of the territories as things continued moving towards more and more centralization until you could really only make money in the WWF or WCW... and then just the WWF. You also had people pushing the envelope in terms of what the human body can sustain, and a lot of those guys are broken down or dead now. So maybe the '00s and '10s are just the natural bust after the boom.

By the time I quit watching, I'd noticed that while a lot of the best wrestlers had always just been huge guys or good athletes who had washed out of other sports and fallen ass backwards into a wrestling career, there were more and more kids turning up who weren't that physically impressive, had watched wrestling all of their lives and dreamed of becoming wrestlers, and very visibly couldn't believe their luck that they had finally "made it". It always gave me the uncomfortable feeling that I was watching fan fiction. This phenomenon seems to have reached its logical conclusion with The Miz.

I don't really watch any wrestling anymore, but from what I've seen MMA is much more exciting... and real. I don't know anyone that cares about WWE anymore.