The Cauchy problem for the nonlinear wave equation with a critical potential type of damping coefficient（1＋│x│）-1 and a nonlinearity │u│p-1u is studied.The total energy decay estimates of the global solutions are obtained by using multiplier techniques to establish identity ddtE（t）＋F（t）=0 and skillfully selecting f（t）,g（t）,h（t）when the initial data have a compact support.Using the similar method,the Cauchy problem for the nonlinear wave equation with a critical potential type of damping coefficient（1＋│x│＋t）-1 and a nonlinearity │u│p-1u is studied,similar solutions are obtained when the initial data have a compact support.
