What Does Trump Owe Professional Wrestling?
Trump took "cutting a (wrestling) promo" to the next level by introducing it into the bloodstream of American political discourse at his rallies.
I have always maintained that Trump’s speeches are part WWE promo and part Hitler rally. Replace, for example, “Jews” with “Muslims,” and the similarities between Hitler’s January, 1939 speech on immigration and Trump’s Mount Pleasant Muslim Ban speech are striking. The influence of Hitler’s speeches on Trump’s style has been explored in longform. And, we cannot fail to note, Trump once poured wine down the back of the dinner suit of journalist Marie Brenner because she revealed in an earlier profile of him that he kept a book of Adolf Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, in a cabinet by his bed, which he would read “from time to time.” Charmed, I’m sure! So, clearly, Trump’s flirtation with the Nazism is a sensitive subject. But not so much has been made of Trump’s relationship to professional wrestling.
Trump’s first official outing at a wrestling match came in the 80s, during WrestleMania IV. He appeared at the event seated next to a known mob figure — a made man — but at the time he altogether denied knowing the organized crime thug. Coincidence! According to Michael Isikoff:
A newly unearthed video shows Donald Trump standing next to alleged mobster Robert LiButti during a “WrestleMania IV” event in 1988, appearing to contradict the Republican presidential nominee’s repeated claims that he never knew LiButti. LiButti’s daughter told Yahoo News that Trump invited them to the event as his guests. In the video, Trump, ex-wife Ivana, and LiButti can be seen sitting the front row together for the 3.5-hour event. LiButti, who died in 2014, was banned from New Jersey casinos in 1991 due to his relationship with New York Mafia don John Gotti. On multiple occasions, Trump has said he wasn’t that close with LiButti and insisted that he didn’t “recognize the name.”
As the years rolled on, Trump got tighter with the WWE and Vince McMahon. And therein his education in populist smack talk began in earnest. All of Trump’s filthy rhetorical flourishes about beating up people — including, disgustingly, Joe Biden — come from his days “cutting promos” for the WWE. The art of cutting a promo involves firing up the crowd and getting the audience to buy tickets to the re-matches by threatening opponents in the most garish ways imaginable. Think: St Augustine on Blood Sports. Trump, of course, excelled at this, then took cutting a wrestling promo to the next level by introducing it into the bloodstream of American political discourse at his rallies. The name-calling, for example, is more WWE than Hitler. Just as the Muslim ban, clearly, is more Hitler than WWE (particularly considering the McMahons business with the House of Saud). But the linkage between Trump and the WWE is mighty. According to NBC News:
Even in his Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Trump was still in character, challenging McMahon to a fight the following year. "I will kick his a-- if he wants, I will kick his a--," Trump said.
However, behind the scenes, Trump has enjoyed a much more cordial and friendly relationship with the McMahons. Trump has even hosted two of their Wrestlemania events at his properties.
"Vince is an amazing man, he really is, we kid and we have fun, but everybody knows he's an amazing guy," Trump said backstage after his WWE Hall of Fame induction.
Linda McMahon, who can be seen giving Trump a standing ovation at the end of his speech, donated $6 million to Rebuilding America Now, a super PAC that supported the Republican's presidential campaign, and she and her husband have also given $5 million to his foundation, which would make them that controversial entity's largest outside donor, according to the Washington Post.
President Trump ultimately appointed Linda McMahon to be the 25th Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. There is a powerful irony at work here for those that follow the sports entertainment. The McMahon’s — and the WWE — crushed all “the territories,” or small wrestling businesses that once dotted the landscape of the American south, southwest, pacific northwest and central states, decades ago. No longer, however; the McMahons ate them all up. Some background from Jarod Facundo in The American Prospect:
In the 1970s, the “Territorial” era of professional wrestling, there were 32 wrestling promoters across North America who aired fights as far as local TV broadcasting permitted. Fighters often moved between territories seeking the best deals possible. André the Giant—the celebrated “eighth wonder of the world”—was working in the Canadian and Midwest territory circuits when Vince McMahon Sr. found and acquired him for the Northeast Territory (now WWE), which included New York and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard.
Today, the landscape has consolidated to the point that WWE controls 85 percent of the professional wrestling market. WWE began life as Titan Sports and gradually rose to the top of the industry, hiring the likes of André the Giant, Hulk Hogan, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Jesse Ventura, and numerous other performers away from rival wrestling outfits. It finally achieved dominance when it bought out its biggest competitor, World Championship Wrestling, in 2001.
And in my humble opinion there is nothing that McMahon’s offer now that is remotely as compelling or as skillfully executed as the wrestling product from “Georgia Championship Wresting” in the 80s, or, for that matter, “Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling” of the same era. The storylines; the performances; the pacing. What a loss. Neither of those territories exist anymore, however. Because, as stated before, the McMahon’s quite simply devoured those small regional businesses. And, full circle: those affected states — Georgia and the Carolinas — gave their votes to Trump, who, in turn, elevated the lot of the McMahon family.
Trump obviously knows his audience. Like McMahon, Trump shares a love of scale and a sense of scorn for the “suckers” that play by the rules. Both also like to set up reality distortion constructs against traditional media (both have worked with NBC, but prefer to run their own platforms). But in 2017, Mike Edison wrote a perfect essay on Trump, contrasting him against — of all people — Hulk Hogan for The Baffler, in a classic meditation on heels:
What Hogan never got, though, was that he was nothing without a good villain. It’s a truism of the sport that the heels sell tickets. Without the Iron Sheik, Roddy Piper, or a raft of other talented villains, the Hulkamania formula was worth nothing. The heel makes the face. Without a good villain, all you’ve got is a public service announcement.
Unlike in politics, to be a heel in wrestling means to be willing to be hated by everyone. There is no electoral college in wrestling. And therein lies the beating heart of Donald Trump’s all-consuming internal conflict. His biggest fear is not going over as a babyface. But he is a natural heel. In the wrestling ring that is his mind, he is an American hero, but the only reason he ever went over is because he played a decent villain, gleefully firing people on a reality television show. It’s an existential crisis that even the plastic fantastic miasma of professional wrestling can’t resolve: you cannot be a heel and be loved at the same time.
"WWE is, if not the key, a large key to the Donald Trump phenomenon we're experiencing today," Kurt Andersen said of Trump on Recode Media with Peter Kafka in 2019. So, so true. Certainly Trump’s storytelling owes a bit to the WWE, the way he casts opponents, for sure. Sleepy Joe’s Justice Department, in the present Trump mythologizing, is trying to crush the people and Trump is standing in their way.
It is not a coincidence that Trump is a WWE Hall of Famer.
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