Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Lashley has invited President Trump to be in his corner on July 2nd at the Slammiversary PPV. Donald Trump has already been in Lashley’s corner back at WrestleMania 23. Lashley defeated Umaga and then Trump shaved Vince McMahon’s head.
Bobby Lashley will be facing GFW Global Champion Alberto El Patron at Slammiversary in the main-event. Alberto El Patron already has his father, legendary Mexican wrestler Dos Caras, in his corner. Impact Wrestling released the following statement:
Lashley Wants President Trump In His Corner For Slammiversary on July 2nd
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nashville (June 23, 2017) – IMPACT Wrestling World Champion Bobby Lashley made an unprecedented Presidential appeal on Thursday morning.
Via Twitter, Lashley (@fightbobby) asked President Donald Trump to be in his corner for his title defense at Slammiversary on July 2, when Lashley puts the gold on the line against Alberto El Patron.
El Patron earlier this week announced that his father, legendary Mexican wrestler Dos Caras, will be in his corner at Slammiversary.
Lashley asked Trump to join him at Slammiversary, which will be held on pay-per-view and filmed at the backlot of Universal Studios Florida in Orlando.
“Well, it looks like I need to find a cornerman for Slammiversary? @realDonaldTrump? It won’t be the 1st time! #reallegend,” Lashley tweeted.
IMPACT Wrestling is waiting for an answer from Trump.
IMPACT Wrestling is a subsidiary of Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corp.
About IMPACT Wrestling
IMPACT Wrestling specializes in television properties, events, products, merchandise and music, as well as the management and promotion of professional wrestlers. The roster features such greats as Bobby Lashley, Alberto El Patron, EC3, Eddie Edwards, Davey Richards, James Storm, Low-Ki and the high-flying X-Division, plus the lovely and lethal Knockouts, including Gail Kim. Its highly successful flagship, IMPACT WRESTLING, broadcasts in more than 120 countries around the world, including Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Pop (a joint venture of CBS Corporation and Lionsgate) in the United States, Fight Network and GameTV in Canada, Sony Six in India and Spike UK in the United Kingdom.
“Stone Cold” Steve Austin is in the unique position of being able to say he gave a Stone Cold Stunner to a United States President. Austin recently took part in an interview with Complex Magazine where he discussed working with Donald Trump at WrestleMania 23 in 2007, and revealed how Vince McMahon went about convincing Trump to agree to take the Stunner.
“Vince says to me, ‘Steve, I’m going to see if I can get Donald to take the Stunner. I said, ‘you think?’ He says, ‘Oh yeah, it’ll be great, it’ll be great,'” Austin recalled. “[Vince] goes up to Donald and says, ‘Hey Donald, this is Stone Cold Steve Austin.’ I shook Donald’s hand. He goes, ‘Listen, I want to know if after the match, when everything is done, if Steve could hit the Stone Cold Stunner on you.’ Donald says, ‘You think it’d be a good thing?’ and Vince goes, ‘Oh, of course it would be. It would just blow the roof off the place.’ And Donald’s right hand guy was saying, ‘No, no, no! You don’t need to do this, we got other things to do!’ He’s trying to talk him out of it. And Donald says to Vince, ‘You think it’ll help?’ and Vince goes, ‘I promise you it’ll help.’ And Donald says, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.'”
Stone Cold ended up delivering the move to fellow Trump, and while his fellow WWE Hall of Famer didn’t take the move as well as a trained wrestler would, Austin gives him credit for trying.
“It wasn’t a picture-perfect stunner, but I give Donald Trump a hell of a lot of credit for being a man,” Austin said. “He was a stand-up guy, he was there to do business and we did business, so I respect the man for that. If I see him giving a speech on the TV, I don’t think, ‘Hey, I gave this guy a stunner.’ We were doing business and we did business. The fact that he is going to be the next President of the United States, it’s a hell of a story.”
You can read Austin’s entire interview at Complex.com.
– WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair will be appearing with rapper Coolio at the 25th annual Wing Bowl on 2/3 from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. CBS Philadelphia has full details at this link.
– It appears Zack Ryder may be undergoing knee surgery in Birmingham, Alabama today. WWE has not revealed the results of Ryder’s MRI from Wednesday but he tweeted the following this morning, indicating surgery in Alabama:
Flew to Birmingham, Alabama this morning…and not for a vacation.
– WWE announcer JBL wrote the following in response to a fan that asked if Donald Trump would’ve still appointed Linda McMahon as head of the Small Business Administration if it weren’t for the millions of dollars she donated to him:
do you feel she would have been appointed w/o the financial contributions made to PEOTUS?
I think @Linda_McMahon was appointed because she took a small business and turned it into a global conglomerate. This is my choice also. https://t.co/Q0YDbpHb7F
Back in 2008, while in New York doing promotional work for WrestleMania 24 the following weekend in Orlando, Triple H walked into the Sirius XM studios for an appearance on the Opie and Anthony morning show. Sam Roberts, known now as a wrestling podcaster and sort of replacement for the aforementioned Opie (and that’s way too low a story to get into here), jokingly asked Triple H how worried he was when Vince McMahon was “blown up” in an angle less than a year earlier. This was Triple H’s answer, which got a lot more interesting when people rediscovered it this week:
What kills me is, so many people called – I mean the office the next day… I’m not kidding you. Like, and they’ll probably get mad a me for saying it, but like Trump called and is like, “did something happen to Vince?”
Maybe he’s joking. Even if he’s not, it’s possible that Donald Trump only heard vague word of mouth that was confusing in light of how WWE handled the angle, keeping Vince out of public view and flying the company flag at half mast on the roof of Titan Tower. But the possibility that he had seen the angle (which was very obviously an angle, even if a noticeable minority of fans didn’t get it) and thought it was real becomes tantalizing with him about to become President of the United States.
As a result, the video has posted everywhere today, characterized as the latest in unearthed Trump gems. Whether or not it really is Trump buying into it, just a misunderstood joke, or somewhere in between is up to you.
We’ve reached out to WWE to see if they would like to clarify Triple H’s statement, especially now that he’s a company executive in his secret identity of Paul Levesque
TMZ Sports has posted an interesting new video with Paige and Alberto Del Rio talking President-elect Donald Trump and the McMahons, Vince and Linda.
When asked about Trump naming Linda as his administrator of the Small Business Administration, Del Rio gives his opinion of Trump by flipping the bird. Paige says the announcement was incredible. Del Rio jokes around with Paige about being in the “WWE family” and she replies with, “I love you Vince!”
Del Rio also says he believes Trump and Linda will not do a good job but says everything is possible because Trump actually won the presidency. Del Rio also believes Linda becoming president one day is possible but they both agree that Vince could run in 2020. Del Rio says, “I think he’d do a good job because at least he’s smart.”
– Above is a teaser for next Wednesday’s Total Divas episode with Lana and Rusev’s mother clashing over wedding plans.
Next Wednesday’s episode will also feature Renee Young having a meltdown and more. Below is the official synopsis for the episode, titled Mother of the Groom:
“Mother of the Groom: Maryse and Mike panic when they find their home invaded; cultural differences cause a family feud; arguments over whether the wedding should be in Malibu or Bulgaria; Renee has a meltdown; Dean Ambrose in Vegas for the first time.”
– Bubba Ray Dudley took to Twitter this week and offered his thoughts on President-elect Donald Trump appointing Linda McMahon as the head of the Small Business Administration and as you can imagine, Bully’s comments didn’t go over well with many fans:
If liberals were pissed and crying about @realDonaldTrump winning, wait till they see @VinceMcMahon struttin through the White House. ???
This flew under the radar in light of the other Donald Trump news in the mainstream the last couple days, but on Thursday night, Politico reported that it looks like WWE co-owner Linda McMahon’s possible presidential appointment is running the Small Business Administration. Politico’s source was quoted as saying that “It’s very, very real,” adding that “For the last several days, it has been discussed seriously internally.” McMahon met with the President Elect at Trump Tower on Wednesday, and had previously been rumored to be up for a Secretary of Commerce appointment.
The Small Business Administration is best known for its various loan programs for, well, small businesses. It also provides “Disaster Loans,” where victims of natural disasters who aren’t eligible for FEMA assistance can get low-interest loans to help them get back on their feet.
As reported earlier, Linda McMahon was one of four people to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City today as Trump builds his administration.
The Hartford Courant reports that Linda said “stay tuned” when asked if Trump had offered her a position in his cabinet.
“The meeting went great,” McMahon told reporters. “Anytime … the president-elect of the United States asks you to come in for a conversation, you’re happy to do that. We talked about business and entrepreneurs and creating jobs … we had a really good conversation.”
Linda was previously under consideration for the Secretary of Commerce job but it’s been confirmed that investor Wilbur Ross has accepted that role.
Maybe we spoke too soon about WWE co-owner and former Chief Executive Office not getting an appointment from President Elect Donald Trump. On Wednesday morning, the Hartford Courant reported that McMahon was one of the four meetings that Trump had scheduled for the day. Previous reports had suggested she was in line to be the Trump administration’s Secretary of Commerce only for her to seemingly be passed over for billionaire investor Wilbur Ross.
McMahon unsuccessfully ran for both of Connecticut’s United States Senate seats in back to back elections in 2010 and 2012, spending almost $100 million in the process. While initially, she positioned herself as anti-Trump in the media, she eventually had a change of heart, donating several million dollars to a pro-Trump PAC and serving as one of his delegates at the Republican National Convention. As for whatever position she could be appointed to, she has specifically said that she is not interested in an ambassadorship.
It looks like former WWE CEO Linda McMahon may not be getting a position in Donald Trump’s Presidential cabinet after all. McMahon, a Republican who ran for the United States Senate twice, is reportedly under consideration for the post of Commerce Secretary. However, Politico now reports that billionaire investor Wilbur Ross is Trump’s leading candidate for that job.
Speaking of the President-Elect, a lot of fans have been waiting to see how and if WWE would address him winning the Presidential election. As a WWE Hall of Famer, you’d think WWE would want to capitalize on this tremendous accomplishment. On the flip side, Trump and Clinton’s campaigns were very divisive and WWE might be best served distancing themselves from somebody whom half the country opposes.
There was no mention of Trump on RAW, but his WWE Hall of Fame “Superstar” page has been updated to reflect his win. The bio runs down Trump’s longstanding relationship with WWE, putting him over as a “captivating billionaire” and alpha male. As for Trump’s political career, the following paragraph has been added:
“In November 2016, Trump culminated his campaign against key contender Hillary Clinton and was elected into office as the 45th President of the United States — the first time in history a WWE Hall of Famer would ever hold the distinguishing title of U.S. Commander-in-Chief.”
WWE co-owner and former CEO Linda McMahon has been in the news for a few days, with variousreports in Connecticut media suggesting that she was the front-runner for a cabinet appointment as President Elect Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce. McMahon had been one of the larger donors to the Trump campaign via a super PAC (in addition to WWE and the McMahons being the largest donors to his Trump Foundation), so this didn’t come completely out of nowhere. A new report that surfaced Tuesday, however, suggests that she’s out of the running.
According to Politico, 78 year old billionaire investor Wilbur Ross is the new “leading candidate,” with billionaire Carl Icahn seemingly confirming the news in a pair of tweets:
1/2 Spoke to @realDonaldTrump. Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross are being considered for Treasury and Commerce. Both would be great choices.
McMahon spent a large portion of her personal fortune on unsuccessful bids for open United States Senate seats in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012. Various issues surrounding WWE came up in the campaigns, both related to content and wrestler treatment, including Chris Benoit’s father appearing before the local media.
WWE still has not issued a statement on Hall of Famer Donald J. Trump being elected the 45th President of the United States but several WWE personalities have took to Twitter to react to the election.
Donald J. Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States after a win over Hillary Clinton on Election Day.
Trump was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame back in 2013 after making several appearances with the company over the years, including the wildly successful Battle of the Billionaires at WrestleMania 23. Vince and Linda McMahon are longtime friends with the President-elect and donated millions of dollars to his Presidential bid.
Yahoo News posted a story on Wednesday morning about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s connections to Robert LiButti, a reputed mob member who was a regular at Atlantic City casinos when the former was in that business. It’s a topic they’ve covered in the past, including how Trump Plaza was fined over connections to LiButti before he was banned from New Jersey casinos. The new story, however, centers around new evidence they discovered that theoretically rebuts Trump’s claims that he didn’t know LiButti: The two of them attending WrestleMania IV together.
Held at the Atlantic City Convention Center (billed as “Trump Plaza” due to the hotel sponsoring the event), Trump is seated in the front row opposite the hard camera throughout WrestleMania IV. LiButti is next to him the whole time. However, even though the show is on WWE Network with minimal edits, this is how Yahoo referred to the clip (emphasis ours):
The reputed mob figure, Robert LiButti, can be seen standing alongside Trump in the front row of a 1988 “WrestleMania” match in Atlantic City, N.J. LiButti wasn’t there by accident, according to his daughter, Edith Creamer, who also attended the event. “We were his guests,” she told Yahoo News in a text message this week.
The video was given to Yahoo News by a confidential source who discovered it in the online archives of World Wrestling Entertainment, the sponsor of “WrestleMania.”
The images and clips in question have the WWE logo on them and appear to be taken from WWE Network’s version of the WrestleMania IV broadcast, not any kind of leaked video taken from WWE’s servers. Also, while worded oddly, that last part of the quoted section isn’t even factually true. as Trump Plaza was the sponsor of the event. That’s why the Atlantic City Convention Center was referred to as “Trump Plaza” for the show, because the sponsoring hotel got naming rights a la Atlantic City boxing events from that era.
Analysis: Politics aside, this is really strange, but also not the first time something like this happened during the election. Other outlets have branded previously broadcast Trump clips as exclusive discoveries, though not necessarily with the “confidential source” angle and sleight of hand used here by Yahoo. Even though there’s news value to tying together Trump and LiButti with the clip, the claims about the sourcing cast a shadow over the entire piece.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed on this weekend’s NBC Meet The Press that Vince McMahon enjoyed his entrance at the Republican National Convention this past week, which was compared to The Undertaker’s entrances. Below is a transcript from the show with the WWE Hall of Famer commenting on his recent conversation with Vince:
CHUCK TODD: Let me tell you, you bring up Thursday night, I’ve got to ask you about your entrance. Before we get to Thursday, that Monday night entrance was something else. I know you’ve gotten a lot of feedback on it.
DONALD TRUMP: I think I’m a little bit lucky, and a couple of people had that idea and I went along with the idea. And everything just worked right. And it was so good that they wanted to do it on Thursday night. I said, “Never in a million years, because you’ll never get it that way again.”
CHUCK TODD: I don’t think I’ve seen that even on WWE.
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, I know. Well, Vincent’s a good friend of mine. He called me, he said, “That was a very, very good entrance.” But I didn’t want to do it a second time, because, you know, it never works out the second time.
Paul Heyman is doing the media rounds this week to promote Brock Lesnar on the cover of WWE 2K17 and as always, delivered a few quotes that make you do a double-take.
Heyman is headed to the UK next month for his first-ever tour of one man shows titled, An Evening With Paul Heyman. With Donald Trump making international headlines by appearing in Scotland the day after the big Brexit vote, Heyman wants to debate the Presidential candidate 1-on-1.
Below are tweets from Heyman and audio from Capital FM radio:
– WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash got a lot of heat on Twitter yesterday with this photo showing support for United States Presidential candidate Donald Trump:
It looks like Vince McMahon doesn’t hold a grudge against Donald Trump for shaving his head in the Battle of the Billionaires match at WrestleMania 23. The Stamford Patch ran an article on Monday about how Vince & Linda McMahon were the biggest donors to The Donald J. Trump Foundation from 2004 to 2014.
The McMahons reportedly donated $5 million between 2009 and 2014 to the charity named after the WWE Hall of Famer and U.S. Presidential candidate. Trump himself didn’t give any money to the foundation between 2009 and 2014, according to the Washington Post.
Linda McMahon, who worked in high-ranking positions in WWE from 1980 to 2009, says she could “never say never” regarding Hulk Hogan returning to the company. In an interview with Katie Couric for Yahoo News, McMahon also revealed that she did follow the Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker trial and was on Hogan’s side.
“I followed it some because he’s been a part of WWE for quite some time. I don’t think anyone had the right to take that private tape and put it out. I thought Gawker was wrong in doing that. He said some deplorable things, and it cost him his job in WWE,” said McMahon.
McMahon, who left WWE in 2009 to pursue a career in politics, was also asked about Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Donald Trump has made several appearances for WWE over the years and is in their Hall of Fame. She stopped short of endorsing Trump, but spoke highly of him and claimed that his persona resonates with WWE fans.
“The persona of Donald Trump has resonated with [WWE fans.] Maybe their business isn’t growing, maybe they have kids who are graduating who can’t get jobs. All of those things that you hear I think resonate not only with some WWE fans, but across really the specter,” Linda said.
“He was a great partner, a wonderful promoter,” she said of her time working with Trump in WWE. “He really greased the wheels. We got to know him personally. He’s very loyal, he’s a patriot, he hires smart people around him. He did exactly what he said he would do.”
You can watch Linda’s entire interview on Yahoo.com.
Jerry “The King” Lawler has been receiving death threats since formally endorsing fellow WWE Hall of Famer Donald Trump for United States President. The story is getting some coverage on local Memphis news stations.
Lawler admitted that making his political views public was probably not a great idea and he plans to refrain from making political statements in the future.
An online petition has been started at Change.org to get Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump from the WWE Hall Of Fame.
As of this writing, 4,903 people have signed the petition to get Trump removed from the WWE Hall Of Fame. Part of the petition reads:
Consistent with this statement, WWE should remove Donald Trump from the Hall of Fame for his derogatory comments about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, Muslims and other minority groups.
WWE not only employs Muslim and Middle Eastern talent, but has also recently launched the Network in the Middle East. The WWE must realize how many of its fans are Muslim. What message does it send to them to honor Donald Trump on the WWE’s Hall of Fame?
And Mexico is one of WWE’s biggest international markets – the WWE has a history of working with Mexican professional wrestling promotions as well as recruiting some of Mexico’s top wrestlers. Many of WWE’s most beloved superstars represent their Mexican heritage in the ring.
Additionally, it was mentioned in the petition that WWE removed Hulk Hogan from their “online properties,” including the Hall Of Fame section of their official website for a similar offense. That part of the petition reads as follows:
Donald Trump has no place in the prestigious WWE Hall of Fame. The WWE Universe has continually expressed outrage at his induction, even booing him off the stage during his induction ceremony in 2013. He is a stain on WWE’s ability to be a positive influence to its 650 million fans worldwide.
Hulk Hogan’s immediate dismissal and removal from WWE’s online properties due to racist comments have shown us that WWE will not tolerate those who disrespect their commitment to celebrating diversity. This is a critical moment for the WWE to scrub its ties with Donald Trump immediately.
In an interesting move since he tends to try to go out of his way to keep from offending anyone, John Cena got political on NBC’s The Today Show this morning. He was asked for his thoughts on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s various comments on American Muslims, which included positive references to Japanese internment camps during World War II. During a roundtable discussion, Cena said this:
This is brash, this is bold, and this is brash. I’m with you, I don’t know how it works out. The last time we did anything like this was in World War II, and that was one of the more reprehensible acts by the United States of America. “We are the melting pot, except for you.” That does not go along with our DNA. Trump is being trumped, there’s no other way to say it.
– As noted, John Cena will be taking time off after Hell In A Cell this month and isn’t expected back until late December. Madison Square Garden has confirmed that Cena will be at their December 26th live event, as will Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose, Ryback, Sheamus and Rusev.
– Triple H will be hosting a Twitter Q&A this Wednesday, October 7th to promote the NXT Takeover: Respect special. Fans can submit their questions to @TripleH using the hashtag “#NXTTakeover”.
– Zeb Colter took to Twitter today to post the following comments on Presidential candidate and WWE Hall Of Famer Donald Trump.
IN FAIRNESS TO ALL, @realDonaldTrump SEEMINGLY HAS TAKEN THE IMMIGRATION MESSAGE FROM #WeThePeople. SHOULDN'T I GET A ROYALTY? @WWE
All week, there’s been a noticeable pattern in Donald Trump coverage from mainstream and semi-mainstream media: Linking his theatrics and showmanship on the presidential campaign trail to the theatrics of pro wrestling. As you may remember, Trump has been involved with WWE on and off for over a quarter century, first by paying a site fee to host WrestleMania IV and V and his Atlantic City casino. In 2007, putting his hair against Vince McMahon’s at WrestleMania 23 led to the most bought WrestleMania worldwide in traditional pay-per-view history. Later, he did a brief angle where he bought the Raw brand and finally went into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.
The latest link comes from TMZ, who talked to Virgil of all people about Trump. They wrote that he said “he met Donald at WWE events in the ’80s and ’90s, and claims the business mogul picked his brain for tips on being a great showman.” TMZ also quoted him directly as saying that “People like the spectacle. People want to see confidence. He is confident just like a wrestler. […] All people want to know is that they can pay the bills and live a good life. They want confidence they can eat.”
Trump got in on it himself after CNN’s Republican debate Thursday, saying that “Vince McMahon would’ve loved it, because that was a WWE kind of a thing, Actually a couple of them came up and they said, ‘you know what Donald—can I hit you so that I can get a little bit more time?’’ Because some of these guys, I felt badly—a lot of them are friends of mine and they got, they got no air time last night.”
Back on Monday, Judd Legum of ThinkProgress tried to figure out Trump’s theatrics by putting them in the context of French philosopher Roland Barthes’ famous essay about pro wrestling. He cited quotes like this one:
It is obvious that at such a pitch, it no longer matters whether the passion is genuine or not. What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself. There is no more a problem of truth in wrestling than in the theater.
Given the type of statements and bombast that are getting Trump attention, this probably won’t end any time soon.
US Presidential candidate and WWE Hall of Famer Donald Trump spoke to Sean Hannity on FOX News about Wednesday night’s GOP debate. As the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, Trump has been a target of a lot of attacks lately and compared the debate to WWE.
Trump, who had an integral role in WrestleMania 23’s Battle of the Billionaires, called “the great Vince McMahon” a terrific guy and took issue with the fact that nearly half the questions asked at the debate related to him.
Ironically, Trump also argued that the 3-hour debate was way too long and he thinks CNN’s record rating would have been just as good, if not better, if the debate had only been 2 hours. “I would imagine, after a certain point, people get bored of that.”