Not really honestly. It exists certainly but the gap has never been smaller. Whatever we smarks love, most casuals love too. Daniel Bryan, who I was personally told for about a decade would never even sniff a WWE contract became the most over guy on the roster not long ago. NXT is selling out legit arenas using names totally unknown to "casuals". Roman Reigns continues to get mixed reactions everywhere despite getting pushed to the moon because of how trendy it's become for smarks to hate him. The smarks aren't disconnected from the realty to the casuals, we're the trendsetters, we're the ones who know whats good and who's talented before they show up to the WWE and the casuals realize it. Really, what big indy darling has come in and not done well in the last few years? Discounting the medical issues of Chris Hero and the midcard logjam that made Sami Callihan irrelevant, every guy we've been told "couldn't make it"....has done exactly that. Daniel Bryan, Sami Zayn, Finn Balor, Adrian Neville, Kevin Owens, the list goes on and on.
The casuals still exist of course, specifically the child audience, but it's not like the old days where you had to buy a couple of dubbed tapes of some shady guy on the internet and wait for 2 weeks in the mail to watch a few hours of indy/puro/lucha, there's a world of wrestling at the finger tips of every casual who owns the WWE Network now. There's a reason WWE is going after the best of the indies and Japan and despite their talents it's not because of that, it's because they know these names will get over with their audience and draw for them.
