Wrestler Mick Foley asks Vince McMahon to boot Donald Trump from the WWE Hall Of Fame
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In the sort of exciting development that’s normally saved for one of the bigger wrestling events, Mick Foley has jumped into the proverbial ring and come out swinging (metaphorically) against Donald Trump. It’s not the sort of matchup we would necessarily pay to see, but we would consider checking it out if, say, a friend had already paid and we didn’t need to be briefed on any overly convoluted wrestling storylines or anything. Foley has spent the last two days going hard against Trump on Twitter, as most of us have, with his most stand-out tweet coming in the midst of the right-wring terrorists’ occupation of the Capitol building yesterday when he asked WWE boss—and longtime Trump buddy—Vince McMahon to kick Trump out of the WWE Hall Of Fame:
Trump was inducted in 2013 by McMahon himself, joining previous celebrity honorees Pete Rose, Mike Tyson, and Drew Carey (no offense to Drew Carey, there just wasn’t a third example along those same lines). As noted by Politico a few years ago, Trump declared at the ceremony that the honor was bigger than “having the highest ratings on TV, being a best-selling author, or getting a spot on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.” See, here’s something that not a lot of people know about Trump: He really, really, really, really, really cares about what people think of him. Not in the sense that he wants people to like him, though, because a person like that would try and do things that they think will be popular. No, Trump wants people to like him for the things he’s going to do no matter what, because he wants to feel validated. We know he comes across as totally cool and confident all the time, so not everyone gets that there might be some insecurity deep in the black hole of megalomania where his heart is supposed to be, but we’re pretty sure this is a solid take.
Anyway, Vince McMahon weirdly hasn’t responded to Foley’s tweet yet, presumably because he’s already busy drawing up the wrestling equivalent of the articles of impeachment and not because he couldn’t care less, but Foley’s Twitter feed remains entertaining. Not only is he continuing to talk about the threats posed by Trump and his terrorist followers, but apparently him and Soleded O’Brien are current buddies and former neighbors! Denouncing the attempted coup is bringing people together.
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Linda McMahon was Trump’s Administrator of the Small Business Administration for two years and Vince is a lifelong far-right Republican. If anything this is just going to get Mick Foley blacklisted by WWE.
And currently Linda’s chairperson to the Trump superpac America First Action. But I don’t think Foley has any worry of being blacklisted. He’ll just show up on AEW for a Wednesday night.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the AEW ring, Saguaro Sam!”Could also go with “Peoplekind” or “Bro Love”
MY GOD, IT’S MISTRESS FOLEY’S INFANT SON!
Bro Love is definitely suable. Sorry. Shit, WWE would probably trademark “Mrs Foley’s Baby Boy” if they thought they could. To keep Jim Ross from saying it on the AEW shitshow.
What, you’re implying Vince is vindictive and ruthless about his competition and would resort to legal recourse over the slightest provocation? I am shocked, shocked I say! haha I could see Matt Riddle getting in on that lawsuit for gimmick infringement, cause of his “Bro” thing. And to each their own, I love AEW. Though it does have some notable flaws. The talent and interconnectivity are great though.
Haha. yep, to each their own. I can’t stand the young bucks. If you can’t sell and you’re not Hacksaw Jim Duggan, get out of the ring I say.
Oh yeah I hate all of The Elite, except for Cody, who I only hate half the time. They’re sort of hypocritical for giving HHH so much shit for being the VP of his company and using that to leverage himself intp so many high profile matches and getting a lot of gold, and then they do the same thing. With the exception of the first year of AEW, Omega/Bucks/Cody have had incredible records and between them have won every title at least once if not twice. And they do the WWE thing of having the “faces” act like entitled assholes all the time. Poor Hangman Page having to deal with all that haha.
I’m more into Jurassic Express, Sammy Guevara, PAC, Dustin, Miro, and Dark Order was growing on me before the passing of Mr. Brodie Lee (RIP)
Peoplekind, lol
Of course, he’ll show up on AEW. Tony Kahn’s got deep very deep pockets. Mick will gladly show up over there.
I’m not exactly sure what role he’d take on, probably a manager, but I’m sure AEW could fit him in. Moxley doesn’t really need a manager, but given their hardcore similarities and plethora (thanks Taz) of brutal matches I think they could fit together. Or maybe he’d try to help Eddie Kingston come to the light side like Matt Hardy tried with Sammy G?
Hard to tell if Vince will do it. He’s buddies with Trump, and his wife worked in trumps administration. On the other hand, Vince will do whatever he thinks is best for his company. If booting the orange baffoon is what he thinks is best, he’ll do it (probably quietly).
WWE do something quietly?If he ever blacklisted Trump (highly unlikely) he’d probably schedule a PPV WWE event having Foley come back and push Donald through the table.And rake in the millions of PPV buys.
It would have to be something more directly related to his product. If Trump was a current employee he might be pulled from TV. Otherwise, scrubbing Trump would only call attention to something Vince likely wants us to ignore. (The idea is he tries to keep WWE as apolitical as possible.)
I dunno, he scrubbed Chris Benoit. Why not trump?
because scrubbing Benoit will lose a few viewers, but scrubbing Trump could lose him hundreds of thousands of viewers, and those viewers’ offspring viewers?
I was purposefully conflating Chris Benoit with Donald Trump because fuck those assholes. I love your profile pic btw.
Try looking up Chris Benoit if you want to see them do something quietly.
He might do it quietly, but Trump won’t be quiet about it.
There’s simply no reason for him to do so. You’re talking about the guy who went through with Saudi Arabia even after they assassinated an American reporter. Vince doesn’t care.
Vince will do what he thinks is best for the company, but the problem is he has no idea what’s best for his company.
Vince will probably do what a lot of other high profile republicans do and condemn the violence, say “this isn’t who we are” and not mention the role of their party in stirring up the conspiracy theories and hatred that caused the storming of the capitol, and then not publicly mention Trump for a while.
As far as WWE goes, Vince will probably do what he did with Hogan when he got in trouble. Maybe quietly erase Trump footage from the WWE Network archives etc. Vince is usually all about spectacle, and he typically would embrace anything that gets WWE mentioned in the mainsteam even if it brings them notoriety, but in this case he would likely want as few links as possible to Trump because I don’t think the majority of non-wrestling fans know of Trump’s history with the company or Linda McMahon’s other life, cause when she decided to get into politics Vince did his best to not have her involved in some of the batshit storylines she previously was in lol.
If there is a narcissist and asshole as big as Trump – wait, of course there isn’t. Anyway – McMahon is also a narcissist and asshole and I’ll be amazed if he does this.
What do you think the Ven diagram is of Wrestling fans and Q supporters is. Gotta be a lot of cross over there. QAnon idiots are probably the last people on earth that still think pro-wrestling is real.
I finally figured out where I know Vince McMahon from.
Was about to go with…
SIDEBAR: The amount of people who were unaware that Trump is in the WWE HOF is simultaneously hilarious and infuriating.
I don’t know why it’d be infuriating. There’re just more things in life with which to occupy my mind than whether Trump is worshiped in a particular entertainment venue.
Things like… whether the mayonnaise is expired, or if one of my toenails is a nanometer longer than a parakeet’s tongue. You know, things of importance!
“Infuriating” because he did, in fact, rise to power on a cloud of pro wrestling-style bombast.
And once a group of Q-Trumplicans acted on Trump’s bidding, a bunch of the remainder of the Q-Trump crowd did a heel-turn on the first group and are now labeling them “The real leftist Antifa” as federal authorities hunt them down.(And the idiot rioters that stole things had better hope that they can get to federal safety before foreign assets can reach them first… the feds aren’t going to kill them in order to eliminate witnesses to where the stolen material went.)
Infuriating? WWE’s hall of fame isn’t even a building, like a proper “hall of fame”. It’s not a hall. In fact, its probably where Donald John is going when he dies.
“Infuriating” because he did, in fact, rise to power on a cloud of pro wrestling-style bombast.
I find Donald Trump to be infuriating on a daily basis, and I agree with you about the bombastic link of his ascent to wrasslin’. I’m just lost as to why I should be infuriated that people weren’t aware of the Donald John menial WWE relationship. On one side, nobody cares about pro wrestling. And on the other side, fans, its a fairly tight venn diagram.
How many people do you think even know that WWE has a Hall of Fame?
I have to imagine a good 80% of wrestling fans are huge Trumpists, so best of luck with that.
I have to imagine a good 80%Even if that percentage was accurate, it’s not as if the WWE is a democracy. They certainly don’t consult their fanbase before making these kind of decisions.
Still, I appreciate the proctological skill it takes to extract those numbers.
If anything, Vince takes pride in messing with fan expectations and asserting that he is the End Boss and nothing gets past him that he doesn’t allow. Even when good, new things happen, it is usually a token gesture to make the company seem progressive that gets snapped back to status quo after two months. F0r instance, how long was the “Women’s Revolution” that the fanbase enjoyed before 90% of the roster was back to having three minute matches or “jealousy” storylines or being wrapped up in male dominated ones where they are a love interest etc?
TLDR: I agree that Vince doesn’t really care about what most of the fanbase wants because his company has such a monopoly over talent and distribution, especially with the expansion of NXT to other countries, that even with AEW’s rise in popularity he can do whatever he wants and fans will still tune in because that is where a lot of their favorite wrestlers are employed, I mean, independently contracted.
Proctological skill… I’m gonna use that one regularly!
If they consulted their fanbase Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar wouldn’t have been at the top of the card for several years.
What makes you say that? While I admit the WWE certainly has an extensive past, and not so distant at that, with politically incorrect and offensive stereotypes as well as business practices (only recently did they have a black man win the top belt in the company despite being around for decades and having hundreds of white champs winning it multiple times, being very late to give women equal time and match qualtiy) that would put the company in line with a typical Trump supporter’s mindset, that boils down to the other guy in this article, Vince McMahon, having the final say in any storyline or direction and being an old republican billionaire who does not care.
Many wrestlers for WWE as well as fans of that product are very much progressive and left wing and let their views be known quite vociferously. Not to mention the wide variety of non-WWE promotions and their millions of fans, such as AEW or Lucha Underground, who are much more open-minded and diverse in their storylines, roster, and structure, having PoC, women, and LGBTQ people with input behind the scenes in the writing as well as the ring. So I understand if when one thinks of a stereotypical wrestling fan they think of the 1980’s midwesterner beer dad who believes everyone today is “soft” etc. but that truly isn’t the case for a lot of actual wrestling fans. Undoubtedly, since there are millions of Trump supporters, statistically I am sure a lot of them watch wrestling, I just wanted to share that they are not the majority when it comes to loving the business and I know of a lot of fans, wrestlers, and owners who are against what Trump stands for.
It’s not that high. I’m not even certain if its actually a majority conservative audience either. That’s an old stereotype. I’m sure there are Trump fans among them but the audience is pretty diverse. It’s not like NASCAR event. The portion of the wrestling world that’s online (Internet Wrestling Community or IWC) I would say is majority liberal.
I loved WWF/WWE when I was a kid. As did most kids across the world who had access to it. Whether those kids grew up to become lefties, RWNJ’s or relatively apolitical they’ll probably still have a nostalgic soft spot for wrestling and are likely to be found in the crowds with their own kids whenever it comes to town.
I’d say the overlap in a Venn diagram of Trump voters, WWE fans and stupid people is pretty high.
Cite that data?
Cite that data?
I’ll admit that there is scant empirical data (e.g. the following link is from 2010), but whenever it comes up, wrestling fans turn up more blue than most folks think.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sports-viewers-skew-republican-but-nba-fans-lean-blue/
Actually what research has been conducted shows wrestling fans are more lefty than a lot of competitive sports. It’s also a surprisingly diverse fanbase (and I say surprisingly because the main eventers in wrestling promotions are historically pretty white), so that contributes.
Cite that data?
Here’s one from 2013:https://www.businessinsider.com/politics-sports-you-like-2013-3?ampThey don’t vote, but they’re far to the left of most sports audiences.
Okay the closest-to-primary I can find is this CBS News piece which cites a study done by National Media Inc. of the political leanings/engagement of fans of various sports.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sports-viewers-skew-republican-but-nba-fans-lean-blue/WWE fans (I guess they just cited WWE because it had no real US competition at the time, this was 2008) lean Democratic but low-engagement/turnout.
I agree with you mostly, but when you say main eventers in wrestling promotions are historically pretty white I would ask if you’re talking about American-based promotions through history? Because otherwise that would ignore promotions like Dragon’s Gate, New Japan, AAA, Lucha Underground etc. where even though they do have white main eventers they also have plenty of non-white talent who has garnered a lot of main event success. I know WWE has a super problematic history concerning minority employees (I mean, independent contractors) and their success in the company, I still remember how depressing and disgusting that Booker T/HHH championship match ending was, though other promotions have done a much better job as far as diversity amongst the champions goes. Even AEW, which is pretty white, has had several champs who are PoC in its short history.
Yeah I’m mostly talking American wrestling.
Idk, the online wrestling fanbase at least seems about in line with the rest of the country. A lot of smarks.
Eh, the modern audience watches it like a scripted show and knows it’s a cartoon. In 2017 they had the Jinder Mahal mock Shinsuke nakamura and the live audience turns against him when they thought it was racist. Politics aren’t so brightly demarcated as in general cutlure—it was a wrestler with his own caricature persona mocking a foreigner (who’s a better liked wrestler), critiquing the audience by saying they’re racist and will chant “USA” to drown him out—and since he was being racist and insulting them they do…but their chant when he makes fun of Nakamura’s accent? “That’s too far”—that’s a critique, not exactly a mindless knee-jerk comment.
The modern audience is such a tricky thing to figure out. Jack Swagger would put his hand over his heart and get crowds to happily chant “We, the People!” in what was a very coded right-wing gimmick that never sat well with me.
Counterbalance that by Kofi Kingston & Big E (both Black wrestlers) kneeling & raising their fists in the ring the week after the Black Lives Matter movement began.
You are absolutely wrong about that percentage. It’s a high percentage, but I promise you there are a massive number of Black and otherwise liberal wrestling fans.
Mick, your heart is in the right place, but WWE fans are overwhelmingly Trump supporters if they’re political at all. The venn diagram would be close to a single circle.
10 or so years ago I’d disagree because I know a lot of people who like wrestling that are not stereotypical white trash idiots but the WWE has done so much vile crap in the last decade, including stroking off Trump, that they all watch alternative wrestling programs now.
No, we aren’t. And don’t tell me I’m a lonely exception, I’m not.
Never gonna happen, but I love that Foley gave it a shot.
Even if Vince does something small now, like editing Trump out of WWE.com and the Network, it will probably be like what he did for Hogan. Admittedly, Trump did many things far worse than saying racial epithets and other horrible things on a sex tape (though he has probably done that and we just haven’t found the footage yet) but in Hogan’s case, he just got iced out a couple months and when Mean Gene died they used Hogan’s history with him for a chance to welcome him back with open arms like nothing happened and have him host an entire night even though many of their PoC wrestlers were understandably perturbed by the move. And yeah, exploiting the death of an employee to try and hide the disgrace of another is in poor taste, like lots of McMahon’s moves, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he did something similar with Trump.
“HURR DURR HE’S VURTUE SIGNELIN-”
Yeah, fuck off. Multi-time NYT best-seller, bonafide legend in his genre, and the ultimate underdog. He doesn’t need to “signal” shit.
When the Biden administration comes in, people like Sanders and Yang are gonna be insanely interested in the poor tactics of the McMahons.I don’t think they realize how bad it could be in the coming months.
Oh they know. Why do you think they worked so hard to help Trump get re-elected.
Me: There won’t be a second Trump term. He lost the election. He knows it, and he’s just milking you for your money. It’s all an act. All fake. My Wingnut-in-law: IT’S REAL TO ME DAMMIT!
13 days till this kayfabe is over.
Foley is a national treasure. I don’t even like wrestling and I’ve read his autobiography twice.
It is an INSANELY good read.
I remember working at Borders when his book came out, we only got something like 2 copies but I borrowed one. Burned through it in my spare time; was likely my most enthusiastic non-fiction read.
Never forget the time Ric Flair beat it up
Surprised he didn’t break his hip doing that knee drop.
I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to him a few times and he is an absolute gentleman. A really warm and kind man.
“It’s not the sort of matchup we would necessarily pay to see” – woah woah woah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Assuming that Donny is clinging on to the resolute desk like Maggie refusing to be handed over to Patty and Selma Mick would be *very* high on the list of people I’d want dragging him out of there. I mean, this is the Daily Show’s Senior Asskicker we’re talking about here! Though we’d need to arrange for his theme music to play, never has that opening car crash been more appropriate!
The reason I stopped watching WWE was them doing propaganda for the KSA and Linda McMahon’s involvement with the Trump campaign and cabinet. WWE has always been a vile and reprehensible company in too many ways to go into but if you were a weirdo who liked pro wrestling they were the most easily accessible option you had.
I wonder if NOW, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce will pull his Walk-of-Fame stars… Someone should call someone.
Oh. Oh, this is good. I like this…
Good on you, Mick, you lovely madman. Hit him with the damnatio memoriae…which is going to be my finishing move when I complete my dream of becoming a pro wrestler.
Kevin Nash, Lance Storm and a ton of other former and current wrestlers are against Trump.