One of my favorite Trump moments is Donald Trump on the Six Feet Under podcast with The Undertaker (Mark Calaway) and Matt Lyda.
The interview of the potential president turned into Donald Trump being an absolute fan boy and marking out as if he was sitting in the seats of Madison Square Garden.
He took over the interview.
Undertaker: ”The last time I saw you was at WrestleMania 29 at MetLife. You were there. My family was there. They’d come to you and asked if you would move one row back so that my family could come watch my match.”
Trump: ”Oh, yes. I bet I did it.”
Undertaker: ”You did. You were gracious enough to move back. Well, the problem was I was like, there’s an iconic picture of I’m actually laid out on a table and CM Punk was about to drop an elbow on me. I’m looking at this picture and one of my dearest closest friends was sitting with my family. His name’s David. He works for Georgia-Pacific. And I’m looking at this picture and I see him and then I can see you trying to, he’s got an enormous head. I can see you trying to peek around him. And I was like are you kidding me? You couldn’t squat down enough so Mr. Trump could see the match?”
Trump: ”That’s great.”
Undertaker: ”But anyway, I have to apologize for the enormity of my closest friend’s head.”
Trump: ”Well, the big thing, we had the Battle of the Billionaires, and that was with Vince and me. And we each had our wrestler. He had …”
Undertaker: ”Umaga.”
Trump: ”…Umaga.”
Undertaker: ”Yeah, Umaga.”
WrestleMania 23. Detroit. Ford Field. April 2007. 80,000 people. All-time WWE pay-per-view buyrate record. Vince’s man was Umaga, Solofa Fatu Jr., the Samoan Bulldozer, the Anoa’i bloodline, the same family tree that runs through Sika, Afa, Yokozuna, Rikishi, and Roman Reigns.
Trump’s man was Bobby Lashley, ECW Champion. Lashley won. Trump shaved Vince’s head. That night is why Donald Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame.
Trump: ”We had two good guys, and they wrestled. And fortunately, my guy won, and the loser had the hair shaved. I said, ‘I don’t want to have my hair shaved,’ and - but we actually - actually wrestled a little bit. You remember?”
Undertaker: ”Yeah, you mixed it up a little bit.”
Trump: ”Pretty - no, it was a pretty famous thing. But I think it has your all-time record for …”
Undertaker: ”Pay-per-view buys.”
Trump: ”…for everything.”
Undertaker: ”It was a huge - it was a huge event. Yeah.”
Trump: ”And it was great. But I said, ‘How do we beat this, Vince? What are you doing? Why don’t we go before them? We should go before them.’ But that was a great evening. And I think it still has your record.”
Undertaker: ”It was a big night. It was in Detroit. Yeah.”
Lyda: ”WrestleMania 23, right?”
Trump: ”Yeah, it was a big one. But you went down just before me. And the entrance into the ring is the greatest entrance into any arena that I’ve seen, OK? And I don’t think it’s going to even be topped, the whole thing, the music, the whole deal. And by the way, he’s a dynamic guy. When he does this, he’s very, you know, slow and easy and, you know.”
Trump: ”You’re supposed to act - well, you’re supposed to be a dead man. So, you know, you’re acting sort of dead.”
Undertaker: ”Yeah.”
Trump: ”And it’s one of the greats, and that’s why I’m surprised because you’re a quick guy. You know, you move quick. But in the ring, he just sort of moved around. And you left just before us, and the place was going crazy. I said, ‘That’s a very tough act to follow. I’m not sure if I …’ And I didn’t realize how big you were. I figured you were big, but not that big. So, I’m standing with Vince, and they had other wrestlers in the room. It’s like essentially the green room. It was up high.”
Undertaker: ”Right.”
Trump: ”And you walked by me and said, ‘Hello, sir.’ And I said this guy is really big. How tall are you, by the way?”
Undertaker: ”Right now, probably I’ve lost a little bit through the years, but I’m - around 6’8”.”
Trump: ”6’8”. Can you - you get compressed.”
Undertaker: ”Yeah, my discs have been a little bit compressed through the years.”
Trump: ”Well, that’s normal. They say you get compressed and your feet get bigger. Did you ever hear of that?”
Undertaker: ”Well, I’ve always had big feet. My dad used to tell me, he said, ‘You’d have been tall, boy, if you hadn’t had to give up so much for foundation.’”
Trump: ”But I said this guy is really big, and you were wrestling a good guy that night. Do you remember?”
Undertaker: ”I do remember. Yeah.”
Trump: ”He’s a good specimen guy.”
Trump: ”So, 6’9”, like 360?”
Undertaker: ”Three hundred thirty. I kind of topped out at 330.”
Trump: ”And what do you weigh now?”
Undertaker: ”I’m probably 305 right now.”
Trump: ”Wow. That’s not bad, right?”
Undertaker: ”No, it’s easier. I’m trying not to replace any more joints.”
Trump: ”Right. As a wrestler, you really lose a lot of joints, don’t you? You really have.”
Undertaker: ”Yeah. I mean, it’s, the body is not made to take that..”
Trump: ”No.”
Undertaker: ”..on.”
Trump: ”Not the falls.”
Undertaker: ”And most people don’t realize the schedule that we kept back then, which was on the road over 200 days a year, and that’s in the ring.”
Trump: ”So, how do you … I’ve always wondered because it’s … whether it’s, you know, fun or entertainment or … you’re still getting slammed around, right?”
Undertaker: ”Yeah.”
Trump: ”Does that ring take great absorption?”
Undertaker: ”Well, it’s funny, when Vince started getting in the ring and mixing it up a little bit, the rings got a little bit softer. Before that, it would be just like taking a fall on this floor. They were really hard.”
Trump: ”Really? Well, how did you do that? Wow.”
Undertaker: ”You just condition your body to it where you don’t even - after you do it so much, you just don’t even think about it.”
Trump: ”How often did it - I mean, I know you’re supposed to interview me, but I find it very interesting. How often did it happen where somebody gets really angry? In other words, you hit a guy accidentally the wrong way or something and he’s had it. And these are tough guys to start off with. You know, they’re not babies. How often did it happen where you’re fighting somebody and you made a mistake and you really got - and he gets angry and he really goes at you?”
Undertaker: ”Yeah. You know, back in the day - so I started with Vince in 1990. But before that, in the late ‘80s and stuff like that, guys were really salty, and they didn’t take too many - you know, you’re supposed to be a professional. Usually, guys would think, well, if he hit me like that, it was for a reason. So you’d mix it up in the ring for a little bit and then get back in the locker room and …”
Trump: ”And what would happen? The guys would run into the ring and stop it, right?”
Undertaker: ”It depends.”
Trump: ”I was told, when you had a lot of guys running into the ring - that usually meant that there was a problem.”
Undertaker: ”Usually, when that happens, it’s part of the show. When guys are actually …”
Trump: ”So, what - what stops somebody from going nuts and really starting a real fight?”
(Donald Trump doesn’t know what’s kayfabe)
Undertaker: ”Yeah. Probably losing their job. You have to have a cohesive unit of guys. You don’t have to like each other. It’s kind of like the way I wish politics would get back to. I may not agree with you, but I can share a dressing room with you, I can shake your hand, and we can do business.”
Trump: ”Do you - did you like some of these guys a lot or not really?”
Undertaker: ”Yes. A lot of the guys I’m really close with. And then there are some guys that I don’t care much for. There are some guys you naturally gravitate towards and become friends with.”
Trump: ”So, how many years have you done it?”
Undertaker: ”I had an in-ring career of right at 34, 35 years.”
Trump: ”That’s amazing, and you’re still in one piece.”
Undertaker: ”I’m in one piece. I got some new parts. I got some new knees. I got new hips.”
Trump: ”Does every wrestler end up essentially having to get new parts?”
Undertaker: ”At some point, usually, you’re going to have something that needs to be replaced. There’s very few guys that get out unscathed.”
Trump: ”You ever get hurt so badly that you basically can’t continue the match and you got to be literally helped out and carried out?”
Undertaker: ”It happens. It happens. And what most people don’t realize, Mr. President, is that although we’re entertainment, in any given match, you’re two inches away from something really catastrophic happening. And when you figure the amount of dates per year that you work, that really goes up exponentially, the risk factor.”
Trump: ”So, you’d work 200 days a year.”
Undertaker: ”I had an eight-year stretch where I averaged about 220 dates a year.”
Trump: ”That’s amazing. And that you can just keep going. That’s amazing.”
Undertaker: ”Yeah, you just kind of get in that zone. Your body kind of gets used to the trauma, and you don’t feel right. Actually, if you go home for too long, you kind of get restless and your body feels too good.”
Trump: ”Oh, really?”
Undertaker: ”And you think I got to go back to work.”
Trump: ”That’s a great - well, you had a great career. Fantastic.”
Undertaker: ”Well, I appreciate that. I really do.”
Trump: ”And really, people love you. I heard you were like a political fan of mine, and I appreciated that. But I said he was such an incredible athlete entertainer, because it’s in entertaining. You have a lot of great athletes, they can’t entertain, you might as well forget it in your sport, right?”
Undertaker: ”Yeah, there’s a lot, and that’s what most people don’t really grasp. You can be a great athlete and not excel. You’ve got to have the whole package. You have to basically — and I think you’ve been a master of this — you got to make people care. You got to make them care one way or another. Either they love you or they hate you.”
Trump: ”So, who do you think …outside of you… who was the greatest combination of athlete entertainer? Who was the greatest that you’ve seen?”
Undertaker: ”My goodness, there’s Stone Cold Steve Austin. He was up there. You’d have to put Hulk Hogan in there. And, you know, Ric Flair. Those are guys that just kind of off the top of my head could captivate you with what they had to say, deliver a performance in the ring.”
Trump: ”Now, you were much too young, Haystacks Calhoun, right? Did you ever - you were too young. But he weighed like 500 and something.”
Undertaker: ”He was a big man.”
Trump: ”He was a big one. Let’s see. You had a lot of beauties out there.”
Undertaker: ”I had my share of giants, that Vince used to feed them all to me when I first came up. If there was a giant, there was a monster - they were coming my way first. And if I could work with them, then he might let Hogan or somebody else work. But I had to break them in.”
Trump: ”When I first met you, you were walking down to the - getting ready to walk down to the rink, and I was surprised at how big you were. And the other wrestlers were in the room. And I was going to be following him. And they all called him Taker and they said - it was sort of cool. They said, ‘Have a good time, Taker.’ And I said that’s a cool name. You know, they’re your friends, right?”
Undertaker: ”Yup.”
Trump: ”The other wrestlers, they’re sitting around waiting, and they’re saying, ‘Have a good time, Taker.’ He said, ‘I will indeed. I will indeed.’ I said that’s pretty cool. Do they call you Taker?”
Undertaker: ”Yeah, either call me Taker or Deadman.”
Trump: ”Deadman, just -”
Lyda: ”How did you become such a fan of wrestling?”
Trump: ”I love sports, and I knew Vince and this and that. I guess it goes back a long way. I held three or four WrestleManias.”
Undertaker: ”Yeah, III and IV were …”
Trump: ”I think so. And they were good ones. They were really good ones. It was hot as a pistol then. And I don’t think I did the first one, but I did maybe III and IV.”
Undertaker: ”III and IV.”
Lyda: ”It was the only time it’s been in the same place two years in a row.”
Trump: ”III and IV. In fact, it was so good, I wanted the second one. And it was a tremendous success. It was great. And really, Dana White and Vince are really two guys — they’re very unique people. Dana is incredible. It’s a much different product. But Dana has done an unbelievable job, and Vince - Vince preceded him by a little bit, but boy, what a job he did.”
Undertaker: ”Yeah, he really did create just a global juggernaut with WWE.”
Trump: ”Well, Linda McMahon, I picked, who really helped Vince a lot over the years. You know, people - a lot of people don’t know that. And she is a fantastic woman. She was the head of small businesses, which is big business basically. Everybody loves her. Special woman. And I know she was involved with the WWE. So, it used to be WWF, right?”
Undertaker: ”Right, sir.”
Trump: ”And they just couldn’t get that name back, which was amazing, right?”
Undertaker: ”At first, yeah, it really was. It got into the big deal with the World Wildlife Fund. And I just think he seized the moment and said, you know what, it’s time for a little bit of change. And it wasn’t worth fighting it in court.”
Trump: ”And they were being absolutely very tough, right?”
Undertaker: ”Yeah. And I don’t think anybody was going to confuse World Wrestling Federation with the World Wildlife Fund. I mean, it was just semantics.”
Trump: ”Did he lose that case?”
Undertaker: ”He just chose not to - he just let it go.”
Trump: ”Well, in the end, he did the right thing. But I remember, at the beginning, it was so awkward to say WWE, right? It was really unbelievable.”
Undertaker: ”Because it - originally, it was the WWWF. And then they took a W off and it was like a whole new facelift. We’d changed our branding and the way everything looked. So it ended up working out for the better.”
Trump: ”So, tell me, what are you doing here with this stuff? You have a big name. You have a lot of fans. When you asked me to do this, I said I’m going to do it because I’m a fan. You know, I really think you’ve done a great job.”
Trump spent several minutes on men in women’s sports. Volleyball. Weightlifting. Swimming. The Italian boxer at the Olympics. He repeated a lot of himself. “I’m going to terminate that immediately.”
Kaia Calaway walked in.
Undertaker: “She’s quite the quarterback, too.”
Trump: “Whoa. That’s good. And you have good hands for that, I see.”
Undertaker: “She’s got a pretty good arm.”
Trump: “She’s got a little bit of an arm, huh? That’s good. Well, I’ll be watching, OK?”
I personally appreciated the irony of rejecting men in women’s sports while Mark and Michelle support their daughter, Kai’s athletic career in a men’s sport as a woman.
Candidate Trump leaves
Matt Lyda: ”Who would have ever thought?”
Undertaker: ”Not me.”
Matt Lyda: ”Did that just happen?”
Undertaker: ”And did that just happen?”