Over the course of the past two years, the world of professional wrestling has seen a decline in fanfare. Ticket sales are drastically down, ratings are at their lowest, and people are rapidly losing interest. This is because of a lack of competition.

Four years ago, there were three major players in the wrestling world: Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and the World Wrestling Federation, now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Now, only one remains, that of the latter, and although two other federations have appeared since then (World Wrestling All-Stars [WWA] and the National Wrestling Alliance-Total Nonstop Action [NWA-TNA]), they have not made the impact that WWE has.

Who do we have to blame for this heavy decline? The fans, for being picky? The athletes, for their change in attitude? Possibly. However, this turn for the worse has one, even larger, factor.

Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

Yes, the owner of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. Over the course of the past several years, Mr. McMahon has bought out his competition. Granted, that has happened in many businesses, but in businesses of necessity. When buying out ECW and WCW, Mr. McMahon did not stop and think that professional wrestling is not a necessity (of course, that is just an assumption, but the result still remains the same).

While ECW was a cult favorite among viewers, the buyout of ECW was somewhat forgivable because there were still two major players: WCW and WWE. People still had a reason to watch these two because of the entertainment that each company absorbed from each other. Die-hard wrestling fans were enraptured with the "Monday Night Wars" of lore (WCW's "Monday Nitro" aired at 8:00 PM EST and ran for three hours while WWE's "Monday Night Raw" aired at 9:00 PM EST and ran for two hours) and continued to watch. It, like many of the matches that each company held, was a seesaw battle between the two corporations.

However, that all changed in 2001 when WCW had its lowest ratings yet and Vince McMahon, seeing a golden opportunity, bought his own competition. It was all downhill from there.

Since then, WWE has seen a severe crash in public interest. Their ticket sales are down (the 2000 King of the Ring sold out in under five minutes while today, they're lucky to sell a fraction of the seats in that time), their ratings are low (three years ago, over 20 million people watched; today, the average is less than five million), and recent storylines have been horrid (the infamous necrophilia angle involving Paul LeVesque ["Triple H"] and Glenn Jacobs ["Kane"]).

That's just the tip of the iceberg. The WWE has also made several talent mistakes, including taken very talented and entertaining wrestlers and have forced them to wrestle below main-event level. One example of this is Scott Levy ("Raven"), who many consider to be the best in the business in terms of cutting promos (character rants that go out to the audience), not to mention a very entertaining talent. Instead of pushing Levy, they forced him to wrestle mid- and low-level cards, eventually leading to his termination. Now, Levy still works under the name "Raven" and for the aforementioned NWA-TNA. He is a main-eventer and is bringing high numbers to ratings and ticket sales alike (considering NWA-TNA is only on pay-per-view television).

Another, albiet less consequential, example is Chris Benoit. Benoit, who is considered by many to be the best technical wrestler working today, works mid-card on WWE's SmackDown! program. Although Benoit has been given numerous heavyweight championship matches, he has never won one. His highest honor has been the WWE Intercontinental Championship, but many fans would rather see him pique as the WWE Champion.

Yet another example is Rob Szatkowski, who wrestles under the alias "Rob Van Dam". Szatkowski is widely considered to be the best high-flying non-Cruiserweight wrestler in wrestling history and many would love to see him get re-pushed to heavyweight level. However, like Benoit, Szatkowski has been relegated to mid-carder, just below heavyweight level.

Quite possibly one of WWE's biggest mistakes is BEHIND the scenes. On a recent online application I saw recently, it stated that (and this is paraphrasing) they wanted someone with writing experience, but someone who wasn't a fan. This is, quite frankly, a stupid move. If the writers are not fans, then how are they supposed to know what the fans want? If the writers WERE fans, what would be the problem? If anything, having fans on the writing team would boost confidence in the public interest, thus increasing ratings and ticket sales. It's logic.

It is my belief that none of this would have ever happened if it weren't for the closing of World Championship Wrestling. I do not blame Vince McMahon for buying WCW. However, stopping WCW programming has forced WWE to take a massive hit of its own. It is also my belief that, if it weren't for Vince McMahon himself, his company wouldn't be so lackadaisical.

I do not contest the fact that Vince McMahon is a genius. I contest the fact that he refuses to listen to his fans. If he would stop thinking of how to push himself and his family on television and instead think of what the fans really want, his ratings wouldn't be in the toilet. He lost millions of fans with his selfish actions and it is feared that he will lose the last millions he's got if he does not open his ears and take heed.

Vincent K. McMahon, our demands are quite simple. Change your ways. Let some fans on the writing team, push the more talented athletes and, for God's sake, listen to the wants of the fans instead of just yours.