>>18533636 (OP)
It's very simple and I'll lay it out for you.
2019.
People had money.
People saved money up for a rainy day, and to go somewhere they wanna go "maybe next year".
2020.
Lockdowns.
People couldn't go wherever they wanted anymore. Nothing was open. No more maybe next year.
It persisted through 2021.
In 2022 most people got access to the live events again as tyrannical measures were cooling down.
People HAD money. People SPENT all the money.
They weren't going to wait. There won't be a next year. Gotta go now.
2023.
Some folks still had money. Most didn't. Stimulus checks were spent, savings were spent, and credit is maxed out on fuel and other required expenses.
2024.
The people who still had some money ran out of money.
And that's why wrestling has dropped as a whole.
Those insane ticket prices in the WWE?
The punters in the front row and 30 rows back all around?
Corporate tickets.
Businesses buy those up and forward them through lotteries and inside-company games at their own in-house events.
A lot of those tickets are sponsored as well, for example a charity case here and there.
Most of the seats you see on the hard cam are paid for with tax deductions and favours from megacorporations, not your hard labour or a normal bank account.
The wrestling boom marks talked about was literally just Cody's story.
There was nothing else of interest at WM40.
WM41 had CM Punk. Besides that, not really any interest since Travis Scott, the Rock and Cena did well to sour the event with that debacle at EC. That's still just 2 majorly hyped storylines in an 8 hour event spread across 2 days.
It's UFC style booking where the main event is the only event, and everything else is secondary. 3 hours of secondary with a shitload of commercials and VTR hype pieces is too much.
TL;DR: The bubble popped. Nothing new.