SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Donald Trump’s association with WWE over the years could end up playing a role in next week’s election in a tangential manner. Yahoo! News reports that a “newly uncovered video” appears to contradict his claim that he never knew a Robert LiButti, a high-stakes gambler who is alleged to have ties to organized crime. The video shows Trump sitting next to him and interacting with him at the 1988 WrestleMania IV event.
“We were his guests,” his daughter told Yahoo in a text message this week. Yahoo reports that “the video appears to lend new support to assertions Trump once had close relations with LiButti, who was banned from the state’s casinos in 1991 because of his ties to Mafia boss John Gotti… LiButti can also be seen sitting throughout the three-and-a-half hour event in a front-row seat next to Trump and his then wife, Ivana.”
The issue appears to not just be Trump associated with LiButti enough to sit next to him as his guest at the 1988 event he was hosting at his Atlantic City, N.J. casino, but that Trump has recently denied even knowing him.
David Clay Johnson, a reporter who has interviewed Trump many times, says that WrestleMania event “is just one of many times that Trump was close to Bob, who was the biggest loser at Trump casinos and therefore Trump’s most important customer.”
READ THE FULL STORY HERE.
Keller’s Analysis: WWE has not drawn attention to its past association with Donald Trump on their TV shows or social media or website this political season. In the past WWE has been more active in politics such as encouraging their viewers to “Smackdown the Vote” and having candidates appear on soundbites on the TV shows and having their performers involved in the “Smackdown the Vote” campaign. However you feel about Trump, this is surprisingly the only WWE-related story that has gotten much traction, other than some clips shown a couple months back of him shaving Vince McMahon’s head.
Really? Go to a wrestling site, that one been reading for years, to get A W A Y from politics and find a story on Trump? I don’t want to see politics on this site. Bad, bad decision. Especially not wise to choose sides (in this case anti-Trump). I may be in the minority but if I want to read about the election I don’t want to do it here. Wow.
So I leave your website due to your obvious political bias, decide to come back, and find this non-story. See ya…
Really you needed to post this? Weak attempt to use wrestling as an excuse for this. Ugh!
Thanks Wade for covering this. One of the bigger wrestling stories of the year is, indeed, Donald Trump, WWE Hall of Fame member.
Wrestling sites shy from this, it appears, for the very reason your first two comments example.
Sad. (As Trump himself would say.)
Donald Trump is an ugly person, but more pointedly to this audience, professional wrestling too has a lot of ugliness in its history. Fans today can try to pretend that is not true (just as they might want to ignore the truth about Trump), but reality eventually catches up with us all.
I’m not sure how this article is supposed to demonstrate bias on the Torch’s part. ANY political coverage this election season is going to be of Trump because he has ties to pro wrestling through WWE. It’s not like Clinton ran in at All Star Extravaganza to help the Young Bucks win the tag titles.
It’s just a shame that Ventura didn’t also run, because THAT would make for some great political/wrestling crossover articles.
Trump supporters, like the man himself, love to play the victim