"The World Is Professional Wrestling, By Way of Donald J Trump" [from the archives]

Kate Carasiello

20 Mar 2025 — 10 min read

Author’s Note: This piece was originally published on the now-defunct Top Rope Press in April 2016. She has been edited for clarity and to update with archived links to improve navigation and citation.

I wrote this piece nine years ago and it strikes me how naïve this was/I was. How naïve am I right now? Anywho, without further ado:

black and white photograph of American professional wrestler Dusty Rhodes with a cigar up his nose, circa 1973. — Dusty Rhodes, circa 1973 | *1973 Victory Sports Wrestling Annual Issue 4*

Very early on in the 2016 presidential election cycle, I started noticing telltale signs of professional wrestling psychology techniques displayed by insurgent candidate, Donald J. Trump.

I began to develop a theory as the debates and first primaries went by--The Donald was clearly utilizing the spectacle, the aggro machismo, the fearless anti-PC promos characteristic of professional wrestling. And it was paying off in dividends. Spectators and pundits were baffled. What did this mean for the culture? What does this say about the zeitgeist? I played this thought exercise out with friends and to myself for some time. I had the silly thought I might be one of the few people connecting these dots.

screenshot from television series "King of the Hill", depicting the local Arlen, TX newspaper clipping of Peggy Hill's Musings — Call me Peggy Hill with my silly Dunning-Kruger ideas. Ho yeah!

Alas, I was not. In February of this year, Rolling Stone published “Donald Trump and WWE: How the Road to the White House Began at 'WrestleMania'”, and so, my further digging commenced. Who else was noticing and reporting on this? At today’s writing, there are more than 15 think pieces, listicles, op-eds, and blog posts relating Donald Trump and WWE, in particular, spanning from August 2015 to April 2016.

The earliest pieces I could find were concerned most with tracing the diegetic roots of Donald Trump’s relationship with Vincent K. McMahon, and by extension, WWE. Most used the same video evidence, courtesy of YouTube:

• Mr. McMahon and Donald Trump announce the Battle of the Billionaires
• Mr. McMahon and Donald Trump's Battle of the Billionaires Contract Signing
• The Battle of the Billionaires takes place at WrestleMania
• Donald Trump gives away Mr. McMahon's money on Fan
• Donald Trump buys RAW!
• Donald Trump sells Monday Night Raw back to Mr. McMahon: Raw, June 22, 2009
• A special look at 2013 WWE Hall of Fame Inductee Donald Trump: Raw, Feb. 25, 2013
• Donald Trump cements his WWE legacy: 2013 WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

The analytical conclusion for these early pieces on Trump was that professional wrestling logic was the key to grasping Candidate Trump logic. Indeed, the story checks out. Trump is the maestro heel of populist politics in 2016. Not only that, but in several cases, the cause of Trump’s new brand of showmanship was laid directly at the feet of WWE—his on-air persona within the WWE Universe presaged this political iteration of the man. In essence, professional wrestling [inspired] his politic[al maneuvering]. This isn’t too hard of a conclusion to draw, given that professional wrestling is pure populism, and populism is the winning brand of politics in 2016.

To soothe the mainstream media’s bewilderment at Trump’s rolling ascendance, these journalists have a prescription:

From Salon:

Media pundits have been caught off guard by the resiliency of the Trump campaign, seemingly impervious as it is to the traditional rules of play. But maybe they shouldn’t have been. If the commentariat wants to make sense of Donald Trump’s apparent political madness, all they need to do is watch professional wrestling.

David Gergen writing for CNN:

For weeks now, the political commentariat has filled the airwaves with analogies of the GOP contest to a boxing ring… Yet the more one watches and wonders why all the blow directed at Trump haven’t taken him down, the more it becomes apparent he is playing a different game, one he knows better than any of his rivals…: not boxing but pro wrestling.

Judd Legum wrote a brilliant piece dissecting Trump’s antics by way of theorist Roland Barthes’ seminal essay “The World of Wrestling” from Mythologies.

The commentariat have decided that The Donald is a bonified “chicken-shit” bully heel. One of the hallmarks of this characterization is Trump's lauding of his own energy whilst demonizing his opponents for their lack. Trump routinely lambasted Jeb!, his most establishment of establishment opponents, for “being low energy”.

As time has gone by, the articles relating Trump and professional wrestling have taken a slightly different tack--if professional wrestling is the key to understanding Trump’s politics, then perhaps the key to stopping Trump is hidden in the lore and logic of professional wrestling.

David Gergen for CNN again:

But if his rivals want to bring down Trump, they ought to be thinking more about their boxing moves: They need to come ready for tag-team wrestling, too. No one is likely to knock him out alone. Why not try together to pin him down for a 10 count?

Election season is long and primed for the heat of summer. Trump remains ascendant. Corporate media has done its part to fan the fires with unchecked coverage and seemingly endless commentary on him; as the wrestling world has long known, controversy creates cash, and indeed, the media is cashing in.

But. The media can only grease the juggernaut of Donald Trump so far. If the audience doesn’t bite, it doesn’t work. In nearly all of these pieces, that Trump is obscenely entertaining is a given—it’s one of the most visible similarities between the Trump logic and professional wrestling logic. But how does entertainment translate into momentum?

Momentum is predominantly gifted by the audience. This is where Trump’s populist synergy is most telling. As an insurgent, Trump carries with him the transgressive allure of the outsider. Despite being a corporate billionaire, wholly not in keeping with the common man trope, his promos are penetrating for the common man in the United States. Pun intended? Rallies, votes, the people are turning out for The Donald. Thus, he cannot be denied. Even if, as Rolling Stone pointed out, “we all laughed” at the idea of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate pre-2016.

There is a satisfaction in getting the last laugh that Trump embodies. (Eek.) Trump brings to mind certain professional wrestling insurgents—wrestlers that were not expected or even intended to get over, much less have monster runs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, Daniel Bryan, CM Punk—each man relegated to a certain spot, and at times, similarly mocked as they reached into the beyond. Daniel Bryan’s successful Yes! Movement was entirely predicated on his underdog status fused with people power. Steve Austin recounts his journey from being relegated to the lower end of the card in WCW—despite his juice with the crowd, his improving storytelling, and his technical prowess—to joining the WWF/E where he may have suffered the same fate (as Fang McFrost, no less) if not for his will power, sense of self, love of the game, and creative impulses. And yet, Punk, Bryan, and Stone became some of the most powerful WWE superstars of the past quarter century, or ever. Their connection to the people fueled their momentum, and their momentum fueled the people.

Trump’s rhetoric, while decidedly different from the wrestlers listed above, is unfortunately just as potent, if not more so by virtue of the presidential election stage. What unifies these men most, in my opinion, is that they embody refusal. They refuse what is propagated and enforced by a corrupt ruling class (even if, once again, this is patently ridiculous in Trump's case what with his inherited wealth and extraordinary corruption). They refuse the script. Think of Punk’s pipe bomb. Think of Austin 3:16. Think of just about anything Trump says, his spontaneity is legend.

They refuse to play nice. And sure, refusing decorum feels great. Cutting through the bull shit and calling out the ruling class at great personal risk is thrilling. I lovingly return to clips of Stone Cold eviscerating Mr. McMahon or Dusty Rhodes' wonderful Hard Times promo for the recognition of what it's like to be leveraged by the corrupt and powerful, as told by someone with the ass-kicking boots to back it up. Embodying class struggle is one of professional wrestling's sweetest spots.

Love you, Dusty.

Trump, on the other hand, is sinister. Don dons the vestments of working class grievance—in him, folks may see a vessel for their desires of wealth, untouchable venality and grotesquerie, and peak refusal of the establishment. They feel his unique energy breaking through the staid jenkem jar that is the federal government beltway bubble, and that transgression seems like progress.

But, why now? My simple theory is that the communal trust has been broken. The citizenry’s trust in the government is close to nil, and it’s not a stretch to say so. As of November 2015, Congress’ approval rating was at 11 percent. Abysmal. Thus appears the insurgent’s doorway.

But make no mistake, Donald Trump is the establishment in sheep's clothing. Rather than feeding off the crowd and giving the people what they want in a rhythmic exchange of energy, Trump is a yawning vacuum where the audience exists only as supply. He is not the one taking the risk, like Dusty did or Austin or Punk did after him; the people are the ones taking on grave personal risk for Trump.

The Donald is nothing if not an opportunist, as a classical heel would be. The Atlantic wrote an entire article on the similarities, “Donald Trump, Wrestling Heel”:

Trump’s heel turn plays on well-established and very American chords of racism, fear, and xenophobia.

It’s true, there is a lot of fear—hatred, resentment, bitterness, misogyny—in the electorate to take advantage of. And the lowest-common-denominator card is one that WWE has played many times in the past. Oftener and oftener, it’s lower than low. Nonetheless, these moments spark a lot of attention and are easily remembered for their outrageousness, as examples of refusal. And perhaps some ODD.

The cultural simultaneity of Donald Trump, ascendant, and Roman Reigns, not ascendant (in terms other than the gold), puts a fine point on this. Reigns' path is many things that Trump's is not—thoroughly rehearsed on his inherited road to uphold the establishment mantle, low energy (cue the “Roman’s Sleeping” chants), the wearer of an impressive mane of hair… And for all but the last of those qualities, Reigns is continuously, critically panned.

Stepping back a moment, with these two men side-by-side, it seems things have gone topsy-turvy.

A few years ago, I wrote a paper evaluating WWE’s business practices, and argued that the ancillary content was supplanting the actual in-ring performances in terms of importance given by the producers and promoters. Here’s an excerpt of that paper. As I write this article on Trump, I am reminded of Fran Lebowitz’s anecdote of the dawn of the televisual age:

When they first invented television… a fear about television was, ‘it’s gonna ruin the culture’, but no one could’ve imagined what really happened, which is that the world went inside the television and became the world.

I think there’s something to that: in WWE, the focus on in-ring psychology seems to have dwindled (hopefully this will change back) in favor of tentpoles and 360º immersive marketing. Meanwhile, the cultural zeitgeist has stepped into the ring, and the power of ring psychology has never had a greater (bigger) stage. Per National Review:

This past Sunday, WWE celebrated WrestleMania 32. The arena is still packed, the pay-per-view is still a premium--but the show seems like just another rematch thanks to the almost year-long show Trump has been putting on.

Even WWE has been Trumped.

The new wrestling season of WWE is just getting started and the general election isn’t until November. Plenty of time for surprises. David Gergen recommended a team-up against Trump; just this week, a Cruz/Kasich alliance was born and then died. Roman Reigns is seeking his own rebrand, not as a good guy, or a bad guy, but the guy, possibly signaling a slow-burn heel-turn? Could good booking be in the offing?

One thing is clear, there’s been an inversion. Never before has the world of professional wrestling and the grander cultural zeitgeist been more entwined. This is glass-breaking, bigger than a WrestleMania moment, and, I suspect, there’s no going back. These are shard times.