Dr. David Moon says there’s nothing more fun than being involved in the arena of a professional wrestling match.
But for his own protection, Moon abandoned his love of professional wrestling as a teenager when he went to study politics.
“There are few things in life that seem worse than being recognized as a fan of professional wrestling,” says the associate professor of political science at Britain’s University of Bath.
Moon has long been fascinated by why wrestling fans protest so passionately when they learn that the outcome of a wrestling match is predetermined.
When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, worlds collided. Political observers have begun to look to professional wrestling to explain Trump’s arrogance and subsequent success.
Fast forward to 2024, Moon said, and Moon said, “The idea of professional wrestling helps us understand that Donald Trump has become pretty mainstream, and now we see it emerging as a sideshow.”
Former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan speaks at the Republican National Convention in July 2024 (Reuters: Mike Seeger)
trained in the ring
The long hair and shiny spandex of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) may seem far removed from the hallowed halls of Capitol Hill, but they probably have more in common than you think. There is a point.
President-elect Trump has a long relationship with WWE. He twice hosted WrestleMania (WWE’s season finale, or grand final in sports parlance) and appeared in WWE storylines. Most famously, he played himself in the “Battle of the Billionaires” storyline, where he shaved WWE owner Vince McMahon’s head in the ring. Trump is also in the WWE Hall of Fame.
President Trump has nominated former WWE CEO Linda McMahon to be Secretary of Education. (She’s also involved in a bizarre WWE storyline involving her marriage to Vince McMahon. Once, while Vince was kissing another woman, she pretended to have a nervous breakdown and ended up in a wheelchair. (He sat silently at ringside.)
The McMahons were also big donors to President Trump, Moon said.
Moon said political commentators have often observed that Trump “got most of his political training in WWE.” “I see a lot of people talking about the fact that his rallies and style remind people of pro wrestling events,” he says.
From music and fireworks to crowd signs, Trump’s rallies include many of the same theatrical elements as WWE matches. (Reuters: Go Nakamura)
President Trump’s call-and-responses with his campaign rally audience (“Who’s Building the Wall? Mexico”), the nicknames he coined (Liar Ted, Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe), his style of staging rallies, all in WWE. It has the characteristics of says the moon. Trump’s association with WWE also gives him anti-establishment, anti-elite credentials, Moon said.
The extent to which President Trump strategically drew inspiration from WWE, or whether it comes naturally to longtime fans, is up for debate.
As R. Tyson Smith put it in a 2017 conversation piece, “Even if[President Trump]doesn’t consciously draw from pro wrestling storylines, at least he’s able to draw from his acting skills, which captivate the audience. “We intuitively understand the ability to tell and tell stories” dominate headlines. ” At the end of the day, Smith continues, what’s important in professional wrestling isn’t winning, but “the strength of the emotional response it generates from the fans.”
How does wrestling work?
Reporter Dave Meltzer provides a concise explanation of professional wrestling for the uninitiated.
“It’s a big play by big people,” he says of a complex world where mock battles by muscular men in tiny pants are just part of the spectacle.
This is not Olympic wrestling. In WWE, the winner of a match is determined in advance, and the wrestlers are characters involved in epic stories and conflicts. That’s why Meltzer describes WWE as “theater with sports elements.”
Ultimately, he says, it’s the story that attracts the audience.
Meltzer fell in love with professional wrestling as a child in the 1970s, and it has since taken over his life. He has been writing about WWE for the past 40 years from his home in California for the prestigious publication Wrestling Observer.
Meltzer says he’s more of a business analyst than a sports reporter. And he has covered every aspect of WWE, including its seedy underbelly, including the huge number of wrestlers who died prematurely, issues with steroid and other drug use, injuries and the unregulated nature of the industry.
In WWE, wrestlers perform bold, physically demanding moves with names like the “spinebuster,” “chokeslam,” and “undertaker’s tombstone.” Jump around, dodge, and slam into the mat. It is a complex and painful operation. It may not be a sport. However, injuries are common and even fatalities occur in the ring.
One Australian wrestler wrote, “Great wrestling is part intricate choreography, part improvisation, with the wrestlers inspiring each other and the audience creating unique works of art.” are.
It’s all fake, right? Professional wrestler explains everything
Outside of the ring, wrestlers never step outside of their carefully crafted personas. Managers and administrators also play a role in the storyline, often playing outlandish versions of themselves.
WWE is all about audience reaction and the ability to elicit emotions from the wrestlers. “The idea is to create a star, a story, an enemy, and get people interested,” Meltzer said. Asked if part of WWE’s appeal is that it’s a place where men in particular can express their emotions freely, Melzter said, “If you want to call it a soap opera for men, there’s something about it. ” he answered.
Meltzer said the storylines currently dominating WWE are long-standing family feuds, with shifting alliances and power struggles between wrestlers who are related in real life.
WWE’s “Raw” is considered one of the longest-running television shows in U.S. history. On January 6th, Raw will move from cable TV to Netflix, potentially making it available to a wider audience. (Australia is excluded from this license agreement).
The fact that WWE’s streaming premiere will take place on the same day that the U.S. Congress certifies the election results is an interesting synchronicity for those who have watched the convergence of politics and pro wrestling.
A match at WrestleMania in 2024, the annual finale where WWE crowns its champion. (Reuters/Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports)
Why don’t wrestlers go out and win matches?
For decades, a great deal of energy has been spent hiding the lie that professional wrestling matches are real. With its roots in carnival sideshows, professional wrestling matches in the United States began to be modified, or “manufactured,” to make them more entertaining.
In 1989, that lie was officially dispelled when authorities testified in court that wrestling was merely “entertainment” meant to avoid regulations governing the sport.
The illusion that professional wrestlers were actually fighting was maintained for most of the 20th century. (Reuters/Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports)
In wrestling terminology, maintaining this illusion is known as “kayfabe.” “Kayfabe was a company that was lied to about the authenticity of its products,” Moon said. Over time, he says, kayfabe has changed and is now popular with audiences. “No one actually watches pro wrestling and thinks, ‘This is real’…maybe very young kids, but people know it’s not real,” Moon said.
“Really, the joy comes from the engagement. You know it’s predetermined, you know it’s scripted, but the fact that you’ve been following along to find out the storyline. Where does it go?” Who’s on top, who’s on the bottom, and what happens behind the scenes?
As audiences become immersed in fantasy, and more real-life events and people become the inspiration for WWE storylines, wrestling becomes recognized by more and more people as a hallmark of our cultural moment. I did.
“Is it all about wrestling?” Jeremy Gordon wrote in the New York Times. “More and more aspects of popular culture are becoming like professional wrestling. In the stage-managed ‘reality’ where scripted stories blend freely with real-life events, the ambiguity between truth and falsehood is Rather than reducing the audience’s addiction to professional wrestling, it seems that this borderline is increasing the audience’s addiction to professional wrestling. It’s a melodrama,” Gordon wrote. “So I think that’s the element that resonates the most, given that politics and pop culture are often likened to pro wrestling. It’s not about eccentric characters or huge threats, it’s about telling great stories without worrying about positionality.” This is a fact that we are committed to. ”
maintain kayfabe
Moon says the very concept of “keeping kayfabe” where audiences fall into the conceit could provide WWE with insight into Trump’s success and relationship with his supporters.
“[Trump]is capitalizing on this element of people enjoying the pleasure of conformity,” he says. President Trump’s supporters are willing to suspend disbelief to enjoy the show, Moon said, despite the often blatant lies.
“If politics is something that more and more people are so cynical about and don’t actually believe in, then a lot of people will choose politics that is funny and allows them to say things they don’t think they can say. I can comfortably say otherwise. ”
But President Moon says Trump is an “extreme phenomenon” of something much larger.
“The more politics becomes a sham…the more people keep drawing kayfabe into politics instead of truly believing in it,” he says. Moon said the public knows that politicians’ speeches are “written by teams of speechwriters based on focus groups,” but they still support them. “They listen as if they don’t know that, and at the same time argue, ‘So why are we giving this speech? Who are we giving this speech to?'”
Why are we still taking Donald Trump literally?
For Abraham Josephine Reisman, author of the acclaimed “Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America,” WWE’s influence on politics, especially President Trump’s Republican Party, is sinister.
She coined the term “neoka fave.” In an opinion piece for the New York Times, she wrote, “After a while, neo-Kfabe creators and consumers tend to lose the ability to tell what’s real and what’s not. Wrestlers can become their characters. However, fans may be fooled.” An obsessive who quits an argument, a complete cynic who devours everything for the thrill of it, the truth is terrible. ”
Neochifabe, she argues, is the essence of today’s Republican campaign and governing strategy, a force that “turns the world into a hall of mirrors from which it is nearly impossible to escape.”
