Following the opening night of the Republican National Convention on Monday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump drew several comparisons to WWE superstars, like The Undertaker, for his exuberant entrance.
With the lights dim, Queen’s “We Are The Champions” playing in the background, and the shadowy figure of Trump standing in the entranceway, the RNC was officially underway. The entrance was eerily similar to “The Deadman” and his walk down the WrestleMania 23 ramp — the same WrestleMania where Donald Trump performed in the Battle of the Billionaires storyline against rival Vince McMahon.
Some fans even had a little bit of fun, replacing Queen’s classic hit with Undertaker’s entrance theme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UwTd9Cjx14
One admirer from afar was McMahon himself, the WWE’s chairman who had his head shaved in front a worldwide audience by Trump nine years ago. In an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press with Chuck Todd that will air later today, Trump was asked about the entrance ( via Daily Wrestling News ).
Todd, asking about Monday’s entrance before discussing Trump’s speech on the last day of the RNC on Thursday, wanted to know what the feedback “The Donald” received was like.
“I think I’m a little bit lucky, and a couple of people had that idea and I went along with the idea,” Trump said. “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.’”
After Todd noted that he’d never seen such a grandiose entrance before — not even in the WWE — Trump said he and McMahon spoke about it recently, garnering praise from his real-life friend and on-screen rival.
Donald Trump Reveals Recent Conversation with Vince McMahon – https://t.co/PzmF84O3Dy #WWE #TNA pic.twitter.com/waSdMXPGsQ
— Daily Wrestling News (@DailyWWENews) July 24, 2016
“Yeah, I know. Well, Vincent’s a good friend of mine,” Trump said. “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.”
This has not been the first time that Trump has been asked about his association with WWE or relationship with McMahon.
Trump, 70, spoke with Sean Hannity in mid-September following a three-hour GOP debate. Hannity said that the three hours was too long and the constant verbal jabs were “ a little WWE .” The 2013 WWE Hall of Fame inductee Trump agreed with Hannity’s remark.
“The thing that made me most upset, and everybody else too was the three hours because to be standing up for three hours answering questions in the form of a debate – I think the viewers probably, frankly would have done as well as they’ve done, I think they set a record in the history of CNN, as well as they’ve done, they would’ve done better if it was an hour shorter. It was too much, it was too long, and I would imagine at a certain point, people get bored with that. But I like the way certain things happened. It was a little bit like WWE, the great Vince McMahon, who is a terrific guy,” said Trump.
Remember when Donald Trump took down Vince McMahon in 2007? https://t.co/ZPMNfek00G pic.twitter.com/vStnJObnwG
— AOL Sports (@AOLSports) April 25, 2016
Trump’s relationship with WWE spans three decades as he hosted both WrestleMania 4 and WrestleMania 5 at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City — the first and only time WrestleMania was held in the same venue back-to-back years. In addition to his WrestleMania 23 program with McMahon — which received highest buyrate (1.2 million) of a WrestleMania in history, up to the point — Trump appeared with WWE in 2009 in a storyline that saw him buy Monday Night RAW and subsequently sell it back to McMahon for double the price.
[Photo by Mark A. Wallenfang/Getty Images]
