Professional Wrestling: What Happened to Giving Fans What They Wanted?

Growing up, I was a huge wrestling fan.  I knew all the wrestlers, read all the dirt-sheets, watched every PPV, never missed a show and even trained a little to become a professional wrestler.

You could call me a 'mark,' and I would probably agree with you. Wrestling was my passion until I finally said enough is enough. 

Five or six years ago, my love for wrestling transferred over to MMA. A lot of people point to the success of the UFC for the recent slide in professional wrestling's ratings over the years, but that really isn't fair.

Yes, the UFC is real and puts on a great product, but that isn't why I stopped watching wrestling. Wrestling stopped giving the fans what they wanted, so I stopped supporting their product.

Enter a young, brass, bald UFC president named Dana White. 

He learned from boxing's mistakes and gave the fans what they wanted. Each PPV, my love grew for the sport and before you knew it, I replaced my passion for wrestling with my passion for MMA.

Now there's a new PPV king on the block, and boxing and pro wrestling have only themselves to blame. It's been two years and we still haven't seen Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao, and what's sad is we probably never will.

I flip on Monday Night Raw or Impact on rare occasions, and I can't remember why I used to love this sport as much as I did. Dumb story-lines, bad matchmaking and can we please get through one match without a run-in?

People blame John Cena for the current predicament wrestling is in now, but it's not his fault. He didn't book himself to look invincible and become the second coming of Hulk Hogan, WWE did.

It's not like they don't have talent on that roster. Look at Daniel Bryan, Sin Cara, Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne, CM Punk, Christian, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler, Justin Gabriel and John Morrison. 

There's enough talent there to have feuds that will produce memorable matches for years, but instead we get Cena vs. R-Truth?

Like most hardcore wrestling fans, I could never just walk away completely from the sport. I still read about what's going on and over time, I shake my head thinking, "Do these guys have the slightest clue?"

Don't even get me started on TNA. Excuse me, I mean Impact Wrestling. You want to know how to run an unsuccessful company, just watch their programming for five minutes. 

The person I feel the most sorry for is A.J. Styles. This guy could have been the next Shawn Michaels. Talk about all the talent in the world, and what will he be remembered for?  You could argue he'll be remembered as the greatest X division champion of all time, but what does that mean now? 

The X division is just another belt that means absolutely nothing, but that's not uncommon for wrestling nowadays.

Also TNA has made all these changes to it's product for ratings, and it hasn't worked. Correct me if I'm wrong, but one of their largest PPV buys is still Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle at Genesis 2006. They managed to get 30,000 PPV buys only once last year, and that was their biggest PPV. Yikes.

Wrestling better get a clue, and it better get one quick.  Wrestling, MMA and boxing can all co-exist if they give the fans what they want.

MMA is the fastest growing sport in the world, and with the potential fights of 2011 and 2012, they're just about ready to blow this thing out of the water.