As God as my witness, my wrestling spirit was broken in half somewhere around 2002. WWE was moving out of the Attitude Era and into the era of prosperity, as Mr. McMahon had just taken down his arch rival Ted Turner: the WCW was no more, and the WWE had the opportunity to just buy out the rest of its competition without fear of stagnation.
It was tough to continue watching when so many of my friends, whom I gathered with every few months for pay-per-view matches with, lost interest. It took me years to watch it again and even though it was never the same, I still have a lot of love for the world of sports entertainment.
I also picked a decent time to heavily invest in a new wrestling game.
Source: Destructoid Review: WWE 2K19