I have argued here without much agreement that Trump as POTUS is overtly channeling his wrestling persona (as a member of the World Wide Wrestling Hall of Fame).

Wiki on pro wrestling

The history of American professional wrestling promotion WWE dates back to the early 1950s when it was founded on January 7, 1953 as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC). The public branding of the company has undergone several name changes throughout the years, from the CWC to the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in 1963, then the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979, and to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002. Since 2011, it has branded itself solely as WWE. On September 12, 2023, Endeavor, the parent company of mixed martial arts promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship, and WWE merged the two companies into a new parent company, TKO Group Holdings. WWE and UFC continue to operate as separate divisions of the company with WWE focusing on professional wrestling and UFC focusing on mixed martial arts. In 2023, WWE's legal name was changed to World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC, though the branded name remained WWE.[1]

WWE is the largest pro wrestling promotion in the world. It has promoted some of the most successful wrestlers and storylines, and featured some of the most iconic and significant matches and moments in the history of sports entertainment. WWE airs several high-profile programs, such as Raw and SmackDown, in more than 150 countries, hosts at least 12 pay-per-view events a year including its flagship event "WrestleMania", and holds approximately 320 live events a year throughout the world. In 2014, WWE launched the first 24/7 streaming network which would eventually showcase the entire WWE video library.[2]

WWE's origins can be traced back as far as the 1950s when on January 7, 1953, the first show under the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) was produced. There is some uncertainty as to who the founder of the CWC was. Some sources state that it was Vincent J. McMahon[3][4][5] while other sources cite McMahon's father, Roderick James “Jess” McMahon (who died in 1954) as the original founder of CWC.[6][7][8] The NWA recognized an undisputed NWA World Heavyweight Champion that went to several different professional wrestling promotions in the NWA. The championship was defended around the world. The NWA generally promoted strong shooters as champions, to give their worked sport credibility and guard against double-crosses. While doing strong business in the Midwest (the NWA's core region), these wrestlers attracted little interest in the CWC territory. In 1961, the NWA board decided instead to put the championship on bleach blond showman "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, a much more effective drawing card in the region.[9]

The rest of the NWA was unhappy with McMahon and Toots Mondt because he rarely allowed Rogers to wrestle outside of the Northeast. Mondt and McMahon wanted Rogers to keep the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, but Rogers was unwilling to sacrifice his $25,000 deposit on the championship belt (championship holders at the time had to pay a deposit to insure they honored their commitments as champion). Rogers lost the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to Lou Thesz in a one-fall match in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on January 24, 1963, which led to Mondt, McMahon, and the CWC leaving the NWA in protest, creating the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in the process.[10][11]

The World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) was formed on January 24, 1963. On April 25, 1963, Buddy Rogers was awarded the new WWWF World Heavyweight Championship, supposedly winning an apocryphal tournament in Rio de Janeiro. He lost the championship to Bruno Sammartino a month later on May 17, 1963, after suffering a heart attack shortly before the match. To accommodate Rogers' condition, the match was booked to last under a minute.[12]

Sammartino would retain the title for seven years, eight months and one day (2,803 days), making his the longest continuous world championship reign in men's wrestling history. Although Sammartino was the face of the WWWF, wrestlers such as Superstar Billy Graham and Bob Backlund were also hugely popular.[13][citation needed] The WWWF gained notoriety in the 1970s by holding their biggest shows at Shea Stadium or Madison Square Garden and doing strong business across the entire Northeast megalopolis. They leveraged former, but still popular, wrestlers such as Captain Lou Albano, "Grand Wizard of Wrestling" Ernie Roth and "Classy" Freddie Blassie to act as managers for Sammartino's heel (villainous) opponents. At this time, only babyface (fan favorite) wrestlers were allowed to have long championship reigns, such as Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales and Bob Backlund, who all retained for more than one year each. The heel champions, such as Ivan Koloff and Stan Stasiak, were used to "transition" the championship from one wrestler to another, and they generally kept the title for no more than a single month-long program before dropping it to the next babyface. Graham was the only heel character to keep his championship for longer than one month, as the WWWF felt it needed time to build Backlund up as championship material.[14]

"Superstar" Billy Graham during his reign as WWWF World Champion in September 1977.
The WWWF was relatively conservative for promotions of its day; running its major arenas monthly rather than weekly or bi-weekly.[15] Programs generally involved a babyface champion facing a heel challenger for one to three meetings in each scheduled town; for longer programs the heel would often win the first match in a non-decisive manner such as a countout or via excessive blood loss, and the champion would then retain in an ultraviolent blow-off match such as a steel cage match or Texas Death match.[16] Unlike most of the NWA territories, the main event would occur in the middle of the arena show cards, allowing the company to build upon the match's finish in order to sell tickets to the next event; reliable, popular workers such as Chief Jay Strongbow would then wrestle at the end of the show to send the crowd home happy.[17][18] The WWWF also featured popular wrestlers based out of non-WWWF territories such as Dusty Rhodes and retained the services of (at the time) the most popular and highly paid wrestler in the world, André the Giant, in between his territorial and international obligations.

WWWF held their then-major event Showdown at Shea three times at Flushing, New York's Shea Stadium in 1972, 1976 and 1980. Bruno Sammartino main evented the 1972 and 1980 events, wrestling Pedro Morales to a 75-minute time limit draw in 1972, and defeating Larry Zbyszko in a Steel cage match in 1980. The main event of the 1976 event was a "Boxer vs Wrestler" fight between Muhammad Ali and Antonio Inoki which ended in a draw. At that event, Sammartino had retained the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship against Stan Hansen. The 1972, 1976 and 1980 events each had attendance figures of 22,508, 32,000, and 36,295 respectively.[19][20][21]

Toots Mondt left the WWWF in the late sixties, and Vincent J. McMahon assumed complete control of the organization in 1971.[22] Later that year, The Mongols created controversy after they left the WWWF with the WWWF International Tag Team Championship. As a result, the championship would be considered inactive until Luke Graham and Tarzan Tyler won a tournament to claim the championship. They then defeated the Mongols in November 1971, voiding any claim The Mongols had to the championship. In March 1979, for marketing purposes, the World Wide Wrestling Federation was renamed as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).[23]

In 1980, Vincent K. McMahon, the son of Vincent J. McMahon, founded Titan Sports, Inc. and applied trademarks for the initials "WWF". Two years later in 1982, McMahon purchased Capitol Sports, the parent company of the WWF, from his father and associates Gorilla Monsoon and Arnold Skaaland.[24] Seeking to make the WWF the premier wrestling promotion in the world, he began an expansion process that fundamentally changed the industry.[25] In an interview with Sports Illustrated, McMahon noted:

In the old days, there were wrestling fiefdoms all over the country, each with its own little lord in charge. Each little lord respected the rights of his neighboring little lord. No takeovers or raids were allowed. There were maybe 30 of these tiny kingdoms in the U.S. and if I hadn't bought out my dad, there would still be 30 of them, fragmented and struggling. I, of course, had no allegiance to those little lords.[25]

Upon taking over the company, McMahon immediately worked to get WWF programming on syndicated television all across the United States. This angered other promoters and disrupted the well-established boundaries of the different wrestling promotions. In addition, the company used income generated by advertising, television deals, and tape sales to secure talent from rival promoters. Capitol Sports already controlled most of the northeastern territory, but the younger McMahon wanted the WWF to be a national wrestling promotion, something the NWA did not approve of. He withdrew his promotion from the NWA, much like the American Wrestling Association, which controlled the upper Midwest. To become a national promotion, the WWF would have to become bigger than the AWA or any NWA promotion.

Prime Time Wrestling was a two-hour long, weekly TV program that featured stars of the World Wrestling Federation (1985-1993)

McMahon's vision for his promotion was starting to become possible when he signed AWA talent Hulk Hogan, who had achieved popularity outside of wrestling – notably for his appearance in Rocky III as Thunderlips.[26] McMahon signed Rowdy Roddy Piper as Hogan's rival, and shortly afterward signed Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Other significant wrestlers who were part of the roster included: Big John Studd, André the Giant, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, "The Magnificent" Don Muraco, Junkyard Dog, "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff, Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, and Nikolai Volkoff. In 1984, Hogan was pushed to main event status. He defeated WWF World Heavyweight Champion The Iron Sheik at Madison Square Garden on January 23, 1984, and thus evolved into one of the most recognizable and popular faces in professional wrestling.[27]

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With reasonable revenue being made, McMahon was able to secure television deals, and WWF was being shown across the United States.[citation needed] McMahon also began selling videotapes of WWF events outside the Northeast through his Coliseum Video distribution company, again angering other promoters.[citation needed] The syndication of WWF programming forced promotions to engage in direct competition with the WWF.[citation needed] The increased revenue allowed McMahon to sign more talent, such as Brutus Beefcake, Tito Santana, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Butch Reed, and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan.

However, for McMahon to truly turn WWF into a national promotion, he needed to have WWF touring the entire United States.[citation needed] Such a venture was impossible with the revenue WWF currently had, so McMahon envisioned a way to obtain the necessary capital through a risky all-or-nothing gamble on a supercard concept called WrestleMania in 1985. WrestleMania would be a pay-per-view extravaganza, viewable on closed-circuit television and marketed as the Super Bowl of professional wrestling. WrestleMania was not the first supercard seen in professional wrestling, as the NWA had previously run Starrcade in 1983. However, McMahon's vision was to make WWF and the industry itself mainstream, targeting more of the general television audience by exploiting the entertainment side of the industry. With the inaugural WrestleMania, WWF initiated a joint-promotional campaign with MTV, which featured a great deal of WWF coverage and programming, in what was termed the Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection. The mainstream media attention brought on by celebrities including Muhammad Ali, Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper at the event helped propel WrestleMania to become a staple in popular culture, and the use of celebrities has been a staple of the company to the present day.

With the success of WrestleMania, other promotions which tried hard to keep the regional territory system alive started to merge under Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP).[citation needed] Starrcade and The Great American Bash were the JCP versions of WrestleMania, but even when operating inside of its territory, JCP had trouble matching the success of WWF.[citation needed] After Ted Turner purchased majority of JCP's assets, the promotion would become World Championship Wrestling (WCW), providing WWF with a competitor until 2001, when WCW and its trademarks were purchased by WWF.[citation needed] WrestleMania would become an annual pay-per-view phenomenon, being broadcast in nearly 150 countries and almost 20 different languages.[citation needed]

Perhaps the peak of the 1980s wrestling boom was WrestleMania III at the Pontiac Silverdome,[citation needed] which set a "claimed" attendance record of 93,173. In the main event Hulk Hogan retained the WWF Championship against André the Giant.[28] Hogan and Andre faced each other in a rematch on February 5, 1985, in WWF The Main Event which drew a 15.2 Nielsen rating and 33 million viewers the highest in the history of professional wrestling, this time with Andre winning.[29] McMahon used the success of WrestleMania to create more annual pay-per-views such as SummerSlam, the Royal Rumble and the Survivor Series, the latter two both receiving their names from unique stipulation matches featured at the event. These four shows would be jointly known as the “Big Four” of the company's programming up until the modern day.

During the 1980s, Hulk Hogan would cross over into mainstream prominence presented as an all-American hero.[citation needed] Hogan's time as the face of the WWF would last until he departed from the company in the summer of 1993. Other stars such as "Macho Man" Randy Savage, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, The Ultimate Warrior, The Honky Tonk Man, "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, and others also helped make WWF a financial success in this period.[citation needed] Jim Duggan won the first Royal Rumble match in 1988. While these talents were recognizable as individuals, some talent became better known for their teamwork as part of tag teams. Stables or groups such as Demolition, Strike Force, The Hart Foundation, The British Bulldogs, The Rockers and The Fabulous Rougeaus helped create a strong tag team division for WWF.[citation needed] Towards the end of the "Golden Age", Bret Hart of the Hart Foundation began to break out on his own as a singles competitor, with his most memorable match early on taking place at SummerSlam in 1992 against "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Hart would eventually capture the WWF World Heavyweight Championship from Ric Flair later that year and would win the King of the Ring tournament the following year.

Note how Wiki goes through all these paragraphs without even hinting that pro wrestling matches are fake. By the same token our culture refuses to see what a fraud Trump's blowhard act is.

Welcome to the insane asylum.

forget the connection and the linnk, but recall some buddies who used to watch pro wrestling for the laughs and entertainment back in the early sixties. "Pencil necked geek" comes to mind as some sort of proto-meme from days of yore as part of establishing the overwhelming phoniness of the entire fiasco.

So Drumpf is no doubt all that, huckster, shill, faker, blowhard and more, fake machismo sans any luchadores. Is this new? This is perhaps the essence of US politics, or at least the public side of things. Corrupt and fake at the core, a blend and compound of snake oil salesmen, revival meetings and faith healers, P.T. Barnum crossed with Buffalo Bill's wild west shows. All that is lacking is Tammany Hall's free turkeys, long ago replaced with promises of Free Turkeys to come "If we get a sufficient majority", gaslighting aND False claims of promises keps and good deeds done. Perhaps not so new at all.

And, yet, have we not bought it? Time and time again? It always uscceeds, at least in this country.

Perhaps:

be well and have a good one

the MSM will ignore it.

Zionism is an Armageddon cult sect. https://t.co/lvZT7TcaQk

— -- GEROMAN -- time will tell - -- (@GeromanAT) June 26, 2025

the kabuki we just witnessed:

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/humiliation-israel-tucks-tail-after

Yesterday, Iran retaliated for the US ‘strikes’ on its nuclear facilities, concluding the final act of the choreographed play we’ve been witnessing. It launched Operation Basharat al-Fath (بشارت الفتح), which reportedly means ‘Glad Tidings of Victory’, or ‘Good News of the Conquest’ if you ask Google, hitting the US Al Udaid base in Qatar.

Iran says it used the same amount of missiles against Al-Udeid as the amount of bombs dropped by the U.S. on Fordow (14)

The US claims everything was intercepted, and of course, again it was revealed that the entire act was ‘agreed upon’ between both sides.

Nothing to see here, move along. Just another day spent causing heart attacks among those few Americans who haven't already completely tuned out in utter disgust.

And here's a nice video showing testing of the GBU-57 MOP. It was originally claimed that the device didn't have a void-detecting fuze- that it would only detonate when the device had come to a complete stop at the bitter end of its lithobraking maneuver. But this video clearly indicates that it does have such a fuze. This is a little bitty bang, though, which tells me that that test device was short-filled with explosives. That ain't 5,342 pounds of PBX going off there...