The Attitude Era story concluded and what happened next? Stone Cold Steve Austin turned heel, joining forces with the evil Mr McMahon. Popular opinion has it that this single moment was the death of WWF's popularity, the true 'jumping of the shark', the signal that the show we loved was no longer what it once was. You can understand why the Austin heel turn killed the popularity of wrestling. It would be like the church suddenly reinventing Jesus Christ as a womanising murderer, that's tantamount to what the WWF did, they completely disillusioned their audience by presenting a well defined character in a totally out of whack way. You can't sell something which makes no sense, all narrative drama must have logic to work, creative rules must be obeyed. The WWF didn't do that with Austin and it the entire company paid the price. A direct observation can be made of WWF's popularity before the Austin heel turn and the declining fortunes after the heel turn. The most popular star of the era had basically been killed off, part of the audience dying with it.
