To wrestling experts, Donald Trump puts on a familiar show

[sinkspur]

To wrestling experts, Donald Trump puts on a familiar show



Donald Trump gets ready to shave the head of WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, who is in the grip of former University of North Texas football player “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and watched by Bobby Lashley at the 2007 WrestleMania in Detroit. Carlos Osorio The Associated Press




BY BUD KENNEDY
bud@star-telegram.com

They came again Friday to the Fort Worth Convention Center: amped-up, loud, confrontational fans, ready to cheer their tousle-haired hero to victory and boo a long list of despised villains.

It was World Class Championship Wrestling all over again, except with Donald J. Trump swaggering onstage instead of a Von Erich brother, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie turning good guy to tag-team against whatever mortal enemies might lie in wait.

The crowd’s hero strode in to cheers and loud rock music, belittled an unseen opponent as a “little frightened puppy” and a “choke artist,” and then taunted critics that he would “sue you like you have never been sued before.”

Bill Mercer, the retired local TV anchor and 1980s host of World Class’ syndicated wrestling telecasts, recognizes it all.

“Good night, yes, it’s just like wrestling — the hype, the yelling, the threats and calling people names,” Mercer, 90, said by phone from North Carolina.

“Any minute, I think somebody’s going to bounce off a rope or a turnbuckle and make a run at somebody. Or put somebody in a chokehold.”


Trump, a frequent casino host for WrestleMania and a supporting actor often enough to make the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame, is using the same show and script to reach independent voters.

“It’s all dramatized. There are storylines. And there’s all the posturing and facial gestures — that’s acting,” said Mercer, the host for a decade as the Von Erichs and a stable of villains built an empire that in its time rivaled WWE’s audience.

The same goes for Trump’s focus on nativist themes and foreign villains, and for his reliance on lawsuits and demands, whether it’s for a wall, to challenge Ted Cruz’s eligibility or to punish some media slight.

“Everybody in wrestling is always threatening somebody or saying they’ll sue — that’s what wrestlers do,” Mercer said: “And they’d pick on me the same way Trump picks on hosts like [Fox News’] Megyn Kelly.”

But unlike one Mercer interview with the late Frank “Bruiser Brody” Goodish, Mercer added: “Trump just doesn’t throw Megyn Kelly around.”

For 33 years, California writer Dave Meltzer has edited the industry’s Wrestling Observer.


“It’s not just that Trump knows wrestling, it’s his personality,” Meltzer said.

“His delivery is very much like a big-time wrestler’s — the taunting, the name-calling and the whole over-the-top show, and then also the expressing disgust when anybody else does it. He makes himself a larger-than-life entertainer.”

Trump’s 2007 WrestleMania appearance drew 1.2 million viewers, the sport’s No. 2 all-time pay-per-view event. He bet his hair against WWE executive Vince McMahon’s, and won.

Meltzer remembered former wrestler Jesse Ventura winning the Minnesota governor’s race.

“Jesse was a great faker, but nothing he said ever scared me,” Meltzer said.

“If Trump turns into a serious candidate — now, that’s scary.”

Get ready to rumble.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/bud-kennedy/article62806467.html#storylink=cpy

[ABX]

I've been comparing his shtick to WWE Wrasslin for a long time. He comes out with big gestures and campy applause lines made to rile people up. He changes those lines as needed if the crowd starts to lose interest. He finds catch phrases that work and goes back to them when needed. It all completely lacks substance and is made to appeal to base emotions.

A perfect example of this, in the debate when asked about Mexico's refusal to pay for the wall, instead of any substance, he said something along the lines of: "Guess what, the wall just got ten feet higher" and the people screamed and cheered.

This is completely a line to appeal to emotion. There is no fact in that line. He isn't going to make the wall 'ten feet higher' if he makes it at all. Even for those who believe him, that kind of line should make you step back and question his credibility. Do you really think he is going to 'make the wall ten feet higher' in reaction to a comment? Or maybe, he is playing lines his marketing people work out will get him big applause because they appeal to base emotions.

If the latter, do you dismiss it or do you step back and think that maybe, just maybe, you are being played the same way Obama played his crowds with lines like"  "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal."

[NavyCanDo]

Why is there nothing odd or shocking about that photo? Replace him with any other candidate, and our jaws would be on the floor. We may be even seeing for the first time in our newspaper, in a story about his odd un presidential behavior. Yet with Trump, its all cool.