Dear Russell Howard: Please Don’t Compare Wrestling and Donald Trump

trump wwe
Source: WWE

British comedian Russell Howard recently uploaded a clip onto his Facebook page from his Sky One Show, The Russell Howard Hour. The clip in question was an extract of his interview with Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein, first broadcast in November of last year. Howard and Klein discussed the comparisons that can be drawn between professional wrestling and the election campaign of one Donald John Trump. What followed was an uninformed, poorly researched, and frankly offensive discourse on what is one of the purest art forms in entertainment.

There were a few points that Klein made that were particularly grinding, as well as some turns of phrase that demonstrated a real lack of knowledge. Right off the bat, Klein refers to “The WWE and WWF in the United States”, as if it has a different name over there. Well, it doesn’t, it hasn’t been called the WWF anywhere since 2002. This was only a minor detail, but wrestling fans were instantly aware that this was going to be a bumpy road.

From there, Klein goes on to describe Trump as if he were an actual in-ring talent, even directly calling him “a wrestler”. A professional wrestler is someone who trains for years to perfect their craft and works their backside off to make a living in a kill or be killed business. Donald Trump has never had a wrestling match, and the closest thing to a bump that he’s taken is an incredibly poor Stone Cold Stunner. Trump may be good at selling himself, but he sure as shit can’t sell a move.

Of course, the bulk of Klein’s argument revolves around a brief storyline in WWE that took place over a decade ago. She uses this to imply that Trump is some sort of long-term fixture in wrestling, an ever-present figure. This couldn’t be further from the truth; he simply played a key part in a singular feud in the build-up to WrestleMania 23 in 2007, he’s been seen rarely since then and he sure as hell didn’t come to blows with anyone other than Vince McMahon (who he’s good friends with anyway). He’s not a part of our world, don’t try and create that association.

trump and vince
Source: The AV Club

Obviously, there’s the elephant in the room here that Trump is a part of WWE’s Hall of Fame, which Klein is right to bring up. Trump being in there is a blight on WWE’s record, yes, but they’re hardly a perfect company. Do you know how many other professional wrestling halls of fame Donald Trump is in? Zero.

Yes, he’s friends with Vince McMahon. Yes, Linda McMahon is the head of Trump’s Small Business Administration. But as us wrestling fans know, that’s the world of WWE, not professional wrestling. Here is the fatal flaw in what Naomi Klein suggests: she throws the entirety of professional wrestling under the bus, making that age-old mistake of assuming WWE and wrestling are one and the same.

When the owner of Papa John’s fell under fire for his far right-wing views, did the media target the entire pizza delivery industry? No. It was one bad egg in an otherwise fresh batch. In lumping the entirety of professional wrestling in with a singular WWE storyline, it only furthers the stigma that wrestling is a lower form of entertainment. There’s nothing sadder to a wrestling fan than an “enlightened” non-fan thinking they know wrestling. From a single, two-minute long clip, Klein’s complete span of wrestling awareness is displayed, and it’s very little.

Yes, crowd manipulation plays a part in professional wrestling, it also plays a part in all of television. A documentary is a carefully pieced together construction of actual footage to create the narrative that the director wants the audience to see. Dramas such as Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead give characters specific arcs in order to earn them favour or hatred from those tuning in. Wrestling isn’t special in that respect, it’s just another constructed television show in an ocean of them. The only real reason it’s being targeted is because of the stereotype of wrestling fans being lunkheads who can’t determine the difference between fantasy and reality.

wwe fans
Source: WWE

Well, guess what? We can. The fantasy is that professional wrestling is some kind of freak show circus with links to Donald Trump, the reality is that it’s a beautiful sport that elicits a rawer emotional response from its fans than anything else in broadcast media. If there’s one thing worse than people talking about something they know nothing about, it’s people who have total confidence that they know exactly what they’re talking about when they don’t.

Naomi Klein isn’t wrong to criticise WWE for presenting Donald Trump as some sort of hero (though given his rival in the feud was Vince McMahon, picking the babyface probably had to come down to a coin toss), but she is out of bounds when assuming that’s what the entire industry is all about.

Us wrestling fans are proud of the thing we love, we know it’s all a show and we don’t care. Professional wrestling is about so much more than loud characters and rowdy crowds, it’s a craft that thousands of talented people the world over contribute towards. Was Jimmy Havoc helping Trump’s case when he put Progress Wrestling on the map and almost single-handedly rejuvenated the British wrestling scene? No. Is the fall and rise of Tetsuya Naito in NJPW a parable for Donald Trump’s transformation from reality TV show host to unlikely world leader? Of course not.

There is something to be said for Donald Trump’s penchant for cutting promos and relying on gimmicks, but that still isn’t specific to wrestling. That’s just politics in a nutshell. It’s filled with lies, deception, backstabbing, and underhanded deals. If anything, politics has had a larger influence on shaping professional wrestling, not vice versa. I implore both Ms. Klein and Mr. Howard, please refrain from disparaging the wrestling industry with the influential platform you’ve been afforded. Being a wrestling fan is hard enough as it is, we don’t need public figures reinforcing people’s already negative perception of it.

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