The law under which the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation operates specifies that DPOR regulation of an industry must be "necessary to protect public health, safety, and welfare."

It can be argued that regulation of professional wrestling never met that standard.  It certainly does not now.

Professional wrestling is theatre, not combat sport like boxing or mixed martial arts.  Results are pre-planned, and the in-arena activity improvised.  In every way, these performances operate in the same way that theaters like Richmond's CSz Theater and Coalition Theater, and troupes like Norfolk's The Pushers and Charlottesville's Bent Theatre, do.  Those improv troupes even simulate violence occasionally, if their comedic scenes require it.

The Commonwealth has never seen fit to regulate professional or amateur theater when it's presented as improvised comedy.

The Commonwealth no longer has any reason to regulate professional or amateur theater when it's presented as improvised and simulated wrestling.  There is no longer any difference, if there ever was.

As it is, the DPOR struggles to maintain its legally-required break-even position on the industry of professional wrestling, and that's mostly because it pays its entire annual budget from the fees collected from a few World Wrestling Entertainment shows each year.   That's no way to run a regulatory board.  

Several national wrestling promotions -- Ring of Honor and Chikara Pro Wrestling come to mind -- have announced that they cannot afford to schedule shows in Virginia because of the regulatory burden.  No touring theater troupe has ever had to make that statement.  Again, it's the same thing.

The Commonwealth should get out of the theater business.  The result of this review should be a recommendation to the General Assembly that it repeal the laws requiring regulation of professional wrestling.