It’s been more than a decade since Donald Trump last appeared on a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) show as a special guest – but former stars are resurfacing and backing his 2024 presidential campaign.
At the Republican National Convention this summer, Terry Bollea – AKA Hulk Hogan, the all-American hero – tore off his shirt to reveal Trump 2024’s red tank top and, in his own catchphrase, exclaimed: “Let Trumpamania run. You’re crazy, brother !”
Last week, in a sit-down interview with then-media personality Tyrus, the former president warned the audience that masculinity is under attack and religion is being mocked in the US.
And on Monday, Trump — who recently canceled a number of interviews with traditional outlets — traded endorsements on an hour-long podcast hosted by Mark Calaway, better known as beloved WWE icon The Undertaker.
“You know what he did? He made politics fun again,” said Mr. Calaway.
Listening intently, with folded hands and a smile, the three-time Republican presidential nominee answered in the affirmative: “Yes.”
Perhaps an unusual place to campaign in the closing days of a tight US race. But for Trump, the only WWE Hall of Famer ever to reach the White House, the sight is reverberating on social media.
Many Americans tune into politics until the end of an election year and “just go with the latest thing they remember,” said Abraham Josephine Riesman, a freelance journalist and author of Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of. In America.
Commenting on Trump’s latest media strategy, Ms Riesman told the BBC: “There are a lot of people who listen to wrestling podcasts, and you’re going to find a lot of people who identify as political or illegal.”
Young men are among the key groups the Trump campaign hopes to attract using podcasts and social media as well as the wrestling world. Those methods have become important to show Trump, said his advisers in a recent interview with Semafor. Trump was “a star”, senior communications adviser Alex Bruesewitz told the site.
“I think what we’re doing better this time than ever before is supporting Trump as a person: the celebrity of Donald Trump, the incomparable aura of Donald Trump – that’s the most popular name on TikTok, by the way,” he said.
In her book The Ringmaster, Ms. Riesman says that understanding the rise, fall and return of the 78-year-old man in American politics is a glimpse into professional wrestling – his art of combining myth and reality, his psychology of elevating emotions through use. exaggeration, and its ability to turn the insulted into the righteous.
“In short, you tell the truth, outright lies and half-truths in between, with equal enthusiasm and sincerity at all times,” said Ms. Riesman.
But, he warns, the danger is that politics becomes like wrestling in that it becomes “about fun, about self-promotion” rather than about policies and principles.
Long before he entered politics, Trump grew up watching wrestling as a child in Queens, New York and has always said that he respects its larger-than-life artists.
His rise as a businessman coincides closely with the rise of WWE, under former CEO Vincent Kennedy McMahon, from a regional promotion to the largest in the world. Both men took over family companies and built empires.
Thriving under the unbridled capitalism of post-Reagan America, they also escaped scrutiny, with Trump later accused of oppressing workers and Mr McMahon depriving his athletes of health care benefits.
In the late 1980s, the couple’s paths crossed when Trump hosted WWE’s WrestleMania event in consecutive years at his hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In 2007, the two men engaged in a media feud, where Trump challenged the authority of the WWE chairman and even showered fans with dollar bills from the rafters.
“Those were the first times Trump gave speeches to big, rowdy crowds who wanted red meat,” Ms. Riesman said.
This rivalry culminated in the “Battle of the Billionaires” at WrestleMania 23, where the wrestlers fought for two men with the goal of having their heads shaved by the missing millionaire.
The game generated more paid buys than any program the company had run up to that point, according to Bryan Alvarez, a longtime wrestling journalist.
“There was a lot of drama in that show,” he said, “but people really liked the idea of one of these guys shaving their heads.”
Since his 2013 Hall of Fame induction, Trump hasn’t appeared on a WWE show — and with the evolution of the brand and the diversity of its weekly product, it’s unlikely he will again.
But, as president, he added Mr McMahon’s wife, Linda, to his cabinet as small business manager. He is now the chairman of the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute.
With Trump looking to return to the Oval Office, not all former WWE personalities are on board.
In an ad that aired last week on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night television show, former wrestler Dave Bautista – formerly known as “The Animal” Batista – mocked the presidential candidate as a “weak, whiny baby” who “rubs more than Dolly.” Parton”.
“A lot of men seem to think that Donald Trump is a tough guy. He’s not,” he said.
But some of the most recognizable figures in pro wrestling lore may be helping Trump come out in unusual ways.
“If you ask a man on the street if they know Hulk Hogan, even someone who isn’t a fan will say yes. (Trump) hitches a ride on people he thinks are long-term stars,” Mr Alvarez told the BBC. .
“He’s a character, an actor, and the things he says, the way he attacks his opponents, the way he looks at himself – it’s the perfect wrestling match.”
At one point in his interview with Trump on Monday, Mr Calaway said wrestlers, like politicians, had to “make people care” to be truly successful.
“You’ve mastered this,” he said as Trump leaned forward with interest.
“You have to make people care about you one way or another. Either they love you or they hate you.”
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