Less than a decade before he squared off with Hillary Clinton in three Presidential debates and 18 years before sitting in the Oval Office for a second time, Donald Trump cynically stared down Vince McMahon and the possibility of losing his hair.
President Trump put his infamous locks on the line in a professional wrestling storyline against the then-World-Wrestling-Entertainment-owner, called ‘Battle of the Billionaires’, at WrestleMania 23 in 2007.
The plan was put in motion inside the squared circle, as McMahon did not like any other wealthy person, especially an outsider, getting positive attention in his ring. A segment with fake versions of Trump and Rosie O’Donnell re-creating their real-life feud inside a WWE ring was the unassuming catalyst for the Trump-McMahon clash.
The high-stakes sports entertainment melee came with a few rare quirks – neither man actually wrestled, with then ECW-brand titleholder Bobby Lashley representing Trump and Umaga, who didn’t lose a match in his first nine months in WWE, attempting to keep McMahon’s fibers intact.
What transpired with months of build-up, only 13 minutes on the dot bell-to-bell, and what followed changed professional wrestling forever.
More consequentially, it was an entertaining moment of camp that taught Trump about the power of live high-stakes drama: a lesson that surely helped electrify his presidential runs.
Donald Trump celebrates his victory over Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 23 in 2007
Trump put his infamous locks on the line but prevailed against McMahon in WrestleMania’s ‘Battle of the Billionaires’
‘They just wanted to make this thing as big as possible. When Trump came through, the first thing he said, “This is your guys’ world. So I’m not trying to step in it, but just let me know what I can do to make this thing bigger,”‘ Lashley told Chris Van Vliet last year of the match. ‘And [Trump] was like, “Whatever I need to do, if I need to make some calls to people bring people in if I need to, if we need to use [Trump] Tower, just tell me what I need to do to be able to make this work.”
‘So that’s where he came from. And we were like, “Alright, cool.” Because we thought most of the time when people come into wrestling, they’re like, “Oh, I want this big spot where I’m bumping everybody and beating everybody up.” And so we kind of like constructed where we make them look like stars, some people hate in the wrestling business, other people are like, “Oh, let’s just have fun with it.”‘
With McMahon and Trump selling their feud, while only focusing on how much money they could make off each other when the cameras turned off, they had to pick two wrestlers that could sell the drama of the future American President possibly becoming Mr. Clean in front of more than 70,000 fans watching from Detroit’s Ford Field, and millions more around the world.
At least three other matchups were reportedly considered to be the in-ring portion of Trump-McMahon before they landed on Lashley and Umaga. In all scenarios, Trump was playing the hero, with McMahon being the villain.
First was Shawn Michaels, representing Trump, as an extra rib to McMahon, who he beat at the previous year’s WrestleMania, against King Booker, the villainous, royal version of Booker T, who would wrestle on behalf of his boss. A creative swerve due to other talent injuries got in the way of this possibility.
There was also Kane, whose real name is Glenn Jacobs, and is currently the Republican mayor of Knox County, Tennessee, backing Trump, taking on 7-foot-1 monster The Great Khali.
This match did happen on the show, just under different circumstances, with Khali winning. That result would have been reversed if tied with the billionaires, likely with Kane performing a body slam on Khali to recreate the epic WrestleMania III moment between Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant.
Then was the most lucrative reported idea, with Hogan, representing Trump in the ring, getting to slam another giant several years before supporting him politically, against The Big Show, who was billed at weighing over 500 pounds during parts of his WWE run.
The pair have appeared to have a close friendship and have been frequent collaborators
Representing McMahon in the match was Umaga, who was managed by Armando Estrada
McMahon’s greatest wrestling rival, Stone Cold Steve Austin, was the referee for the match
Taking part in the bout on Trump’s behalf in Detroit was then-ECW champion Bobby Lashley
Neither wrestler appeared on the card, with the match happening in front of a much-smaller crowd, and not under the WWE banner, less than a month after WrestleMania 23.
Lashley and Umaga were no slouches, with the former being a multiple-time world champion and current All Elite Wrestling tag champion, and the latter being one of WWE’s destructive forces of the 2000s before his tragic death in 2009.
Another twist was McMahon’s greatest in-ring rival of all-time, and the most popular wrestler in history, Stone Cold Steve Austin, becoming the special guest referee for the match.
Whether McMahon ever pitched Trump losing the match is unclear, as the result was not called on the fly. It would have been one heck of a conversation to be a fly on the wall for should it have ever happened.
That begs the question, if the whole world understood McMahon pitched the idea knowing he was going to get shaved bald, beyond just making money, why pick Trump to be involved at all unless it would work for the company’s die-hard fan base as well?
‘Like him or hate him the way he does it, but he’s charismatic in so many ways,’ McMahon’s real-life son-in-law and current WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque said on ‘Flagrant’ this month. ‘And I think he likes getting under people’s skin. It’s amazing and it’s genius and it worked in our business.
‘Do I think he got that from our business? I think he innately understands that. It’s been his whole life. You think about that, like, there’s a lot of billionaires in the world, I suppose. Why was he the most famous one? Why was he the one that was in People Magazine every week?
‘And with everybody under the sun, why was he seen as the epitome of that billionaire sort of status and all that stuff, because of his charisma and his character and who he is, and the way he can speak about it and do all those things, he just captivates people and I think it is where he is.’
What occurred and ringside and between the ropes was a frenetic match including Shane McMahon intervening and trying to keep his father’s hair intact before Lashley’s signature spear put Umaga down for the pinfall.
After the match, Trump, Lashley, and Austin shaved McMahon bald in the middle of the ring
The mega-bout highlighted the WrestleMania 23 card which had 1.2million pay-per-view buys
Even without being the main combatants in the ring, Trump and McMahon did get physical at WrestleMania, with the Commander in Chief clotheslining McMahon to the ground and punching him in the head several times.
That moment came to the forefront in 2017, as Trump, in his first term in the Oval Office, posted a video to his social media of the moment, with the CNN logo imposed on McMahon’s head.
‘I think everybody wanted to do something in that match and be a part of that match. So I don’t know who told him to do it,’ Lashley told Chris Van Vliet of Trump’s clothesline last year. ‘I don’t know when they told him do it.’
‘But leading into that match, it wasn’t supposed to be any altercation, but I guess they may have talked, or somebody talked, and they figured out, okay, “We’ll do a little clothesline, because that could be easy, and jump on top and the punching.” I don’t know where it came from, but that’s what they decided to do.’
After Lashley and Trump’s hands were raised in victory, McMahon was shaved bald with Austin getting a few shears in.
As a dejected McMahon walked off camera, Austin, Lashley and Trump, with shaving cream covering his expensive suit, celebrated with drinking beers in the ring together before the segment’s unpredictable finish.
Austin gave the future President his signature ‘Stone Cold Stunner’ leaving Trump laying in the ring as the Texas Rattlesnake made his exit, a clip that is still posted on WWE’s website to this day.
Unlike Hogan and The Undertaker in support of Trump in the political world, and Dave Batista rallying against the President, Austin has not publicly stated his real-world political beliefs since the 2016 election cycle began.
In 2017, Trump posted to social media an image from the match with a CNN logo over McMahon
A few times during their feud, Trump and McMahon were physically involved in the ring
This was far from the only time there has been a Trump-McMahon collaboration, most notably in present day with Vince’s estranged wife, Linda McMahon, serving as the President’s Education Secretary.
The Trump Plaza Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey also hosted WrestleMania’s IV and V in 1989 and 1990. Trump also had a ringside seat at WrestleMania VII.
McMahon also appeared with Trump on ‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ less than a year after ‘Battle of the Billionaires’, and with his hair regrown, with the future President calling the former WWE CEO ‘the greatest promoter he’s ever known.’
During the episode, McMahon can be eyeing down combat-sports legends Tito Ortiz and Lennox Lewis, who were contestants on Trump’s NBC reality competition, in case they were interested in a professional-wrestling cameo.
Interview requests to WWE and AEW to speak with their respective talents involved in the match were not returned to the Daily Mail.
In current day, Vince has been exiled from WWE twice due to sexual misconduct allegations, which he denies, with the federal probe ending early in Trump’s second term.
Trump has been in the Oval Office for a second time for 90 days when WrestleMania 41 begins on Saturday, currently in the middle of several political fights, including over a Maryland man who was accidentally sent to a prison in El Salvador.
No one could have predicted how their lives would have turned out after ‘Battle of the Billionaires’, all they were focused on in 2007 was creating the biggest buzz possible. Ironically, not much has changed.
