Wrestling is a sport in the sense that there is a competitive aspect and an athletic aspect. However, the competition is not between the athletes.
It's between promotions. WWE vs. TNA, with the fan's money on the line.
You can't watch a significant amount of professional wrestling and not concede that some of the greatest athletes in the world are professional wrestlers.
I watch quite a bit of wrestling, but I'm starting to drift away. Not due to the product (which, admittedly, is a shadow of what it was just 4 years ago), I acknowledge that the industry is going to have down swings and upswings, and one must keep watching if he hopes to see the next upswing. 1990-1995 was a bit of a down period too, but for those who stuck with it from the Hulk Hogan era to The Rock era were saw an amazing resurgence.
No, I'm drifting away because the industry has embraced "Sports-Entertainment" over "Professional Wrestling".
Professional Wrestling is taking all the over-the-top, larger-than-life personalities we've seen in sports over the years; Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Terrell Owens, their like, and putting them all in the same sport, at the same time. It's an opportunity to see these larger-than-life figures compete on the same stage. Most of the great personalities in professional wrestling... Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, The Rock, Ric Flair, Kurt Angle... are essentially aspects of the worker's real personality with the volume turned way up. The show is about the characters, in the ring and backstage.
Sports-Entertainment takes the focus off the characters, and puts it on the story. Personality takes a backseat to plot. It's no longer a battle between two great personalities, now there's an outside goal, a secondary purpose to each match. Management figures (Vince McMahon) become central characters. We get into the love lives, health problems, and other things that, quite honestly, we don't care about in real professional athletes careers. So why would we care about them in this fantasy sport?
Wrestling is supposed to focus on the most interesting sideline stuff from other sports AND make the in-ring product entertaining. Sports-entertainment just makes it another television show.