3. The Story Concluded
Part of the reason the WWF declined in popularity might have nothing to do with negative factors, it might simply be a case of the story naturally concluding. All engaging narratives can't go on forever, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, when it's over it's over. This is pretty much what can be seen to have happened with the WWF, they hooked the audience in 1998 with blue collar Steve Austin taking on white collar Vince McMahon, by 2001 the story was complete and fans moved on (more on the heel turn later!) Even with The Rock, Triple H and Mick Foley (WWF's other top characters), their story had been told and finished too. We watched as Foley's career ended, we rejoiced as The Rock became The People's Champion, we bought into Triple H's year of dominance in 2000. When all that concluded it was the natural time for fans to move on. We started to get repeats of angles and matches, which is perhaps another reason fans stopped watching. We'd seen it all before, it was obvious that the originality of the era had expired. The WWE themselves kind of subscribe to this belief, noting in conference calls that pro wrestling is a cyclical product which goes through peaks and troughs. By the end of 2001 the natural lifecycle of the success began in 1998 was over. Maybe it wasn't even a cycle, maybe it was just a fad, passing through pop culture and remaining unique to its time.