What happened to Earth after the 23rd Budokai?

[SSJ2]

This thread is similar in nature to Keedounan's, although the focus is on martial artists. What caused the great decline in talent in martial artists on Earth after the 23rd? The 24th Budokai was an absolute disgrace of a competition, which can be rationalized by Piccolo Daimao showing up at the prior tournament threatening the destruction of the world - thus scaring away the competition. However, I fail to see why this would continue beyond this. We see even at the 28th Budokai that the tournament aside from the Z Senshi was a farce. Anyone who was present in the 21st Budokai would have been able to win that tournament.

So I guess my point is, what happened to martial artists in general? In part 1 it seemed that the earth was loaded with talent, and after the 23rd Budokai, martial arts became a joke planet-wide.

 

[Symbiote]

I guess they all got tired of getting their ass kicked by children?

 

[Captain Cadaver]

I'd say Daimao's threats and the scale of the 23rd/25th TBs were the deciding factor. Daimao murdering martial artists probably persuaded many to abandon the Budokai out of fear and the level things escalated to in the 23rd TB final with several small islands around Papaya being erased and that island being turned into a wasteland for a while probably made many decide things had become too extreme to compete, coupled with Majunior revealing himself to be Piccolo Daimao reborn scaring off all those who believed it. By the time the 25th TB rolled around, the feats displayed by Goten and Trunks were likewise ones no regular martial artist could compete with and the brutality of Videl VS Lord :bitch would show many how dangerous the tournament could be.

 

[Warmmedown]

Too much money in baseball

Honestly, I can't think of anything. Martial Arts traditions can quickly be wiped out or get to the point where they're no longer widely propagated. Cambodian Martial Arts took a bit hit from Pol Pot and Vietnamese occupation (although they have started to grow in recent years). Some people say knowledge of Chinese martial arts was lost because of the Cultural Revolution.

Apart from Piccolo scaring people away from martial arts, it could have been that seeing Goku vs Piccolo made a lot of the old training stables give up on the tournament, since the gap between most 21st/22nd Budokai fighters and the likes of Goku, Piccolo and even Tenshinhan was so outlandish. Only those who weren't familiar with the likes of Goku joined the later versions of the tournament.

To answer the question and know whether people would have carried on training, I think the motives of the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Budokai competitors needs to be better known. Nam fought for water, which he was gifted by Roshi, taking away his reason to fight. Who Nam trained with to get so strong and whether his training partners would be strong enough to enter the tournament I don't know. Ranfan I'm guessing entered for the money. Pamput wanted to actually be the strongest. Who knows for anyone else.

Another possibility is that martial arts died out from certain parts of the world and not others or the tournament's organisers could have shifted their recruitment focus from one market to another. Martial arts could have just died down in parts of the world that King Piccolo's orchestra interfered with and then the area around West City could have taken over as the leading area for martial arts, despite being far behind the level of the 21st Budokai.