Donald Trump once again one-upped Kamala Harris in the cultural and entertainment department, countering her endorsement from former WWE superstar Dave Bautista with a pair of his own – Kane and the Undertaker.
Kane (Glenn Jacobs, current mayor of Knox County, Tennessee) and Undertaker (Mark Calaway) joined Trump in a TikTok video to express their support for the Republican presidential nominee.
“Hey everyone. November 5th, ElectionMania,” Taker says in the video. “The choice is yours. You can go with President Trump, Kane and the Undertaker, or you can take Kamala Harris, Dave Bautista and Tim Walz.”
Images of Harris likely mid-cackle, Bautista slowly morphing into NBA commissioner Adam Silver with his insane weight loss, and Walz looking as weird as he usually does, flash across the screen while Calaway speaks.
“Choose wisely — the nation depends on it,” Undertaker concludes.
Trump, while smirking, adds, “And that should be an easy choice.”
WWE legend The Undertaker tag teams with Trump in message to voters: ‘Choose wisely’ pic.twitter.com/qy78oSV3JM
— New York Post (@nypost) October 19, 2024
For anyone keeping score at home – those are three WWE Hall of Famers in that video. Throw in Hulk Hogan’s epic endorsement at the Republican National Convention over the summer, and Trump has some significant firepower in his corner.
That’s a hell of a Summer Slam team right there.
Hogan, you may recall, delivered a speech at the RNC that, once he was done, made you want to eat a bowl of rusty nails … without any milk.
Hulk Hogan rips off his shirt at the RNC to USA chants: “What happened last week when they took a shot at my hero and they tried to kill the next President of the United States, enough was enough!!!!” pic.twitter.com/XK91TCkTgi
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 19, 2024
Now, I’m not going to mock Bautista’s career by contrast. He’s not been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame yet. But he’s certainly got the resume.
What I will mock is his endorsement of Kamala Harris. Bautista, who has undergone an incredible weight transformation of late even though he’s an action movie star who relies on his physique for the roles he plays, had some obscene things to say about Trump.
“Fellas, we gotta talk,” Bautista says in a video bit for fellow beta male, Jimmy Kimmel. “A lot of men seem to think that Donald Trump is some kind of tough guy. He’s not.”
Dave Bautista on the fake masculinity of Trump and MAGA. 😅 pic.twitter.com/H15QYqV6RR
— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) October 17, 2024
“I mean, look at him, he wears more makeup than Dolly Parton,” the “Guardians of the Galaxy” actor, who plays Drax the Destroyer which requires a ton of blue makeup, continues. “He whines like a baby. The guy is afraid of birds. Donald Trump had his daddy pay a doctor to say his widdle feet hurt so he could dodge the draft.”
You know what else he dodged, David? A bullet and two assassination attempts. You know, while you dodge fake lasers on your little green screen.
This isn’t the first time Bautista, who once went by the ring name Leviathan, has railed against what he views as a scourge of “toxic masculinity.”
In fact, he filmed an entire buddy cop action movie alongside actor Kumail Nanjiani, which he said “constantly” tackled such alleged toxicity.
Nanjiani at the time said the film, “Stuber,” allowed them to “talk about masculinity and how it’s always been very traditionally defined in a narrow way and how that’s led to problems for everyone — for women and for men.”
How well did the movie do? Do you remember that one part in “Stuber” that was super-hilarious? Yeah, neither does anybody else because nobody watched it.
In a more serious post, Bautista sports a Harris-Walz t-shirt and encourages fans to get out and vote.
“Do your part, get out there, and vote,” he said. “Your voice matters, and this election’s too important to sit out.”
It seems unlikely that an endorsement from WWE superstars is going to move the needle for Trump. Wrestling fans are likely already in his corner. But then who knows? Do they lean more to the Hogan, Kane, Undertaker side of things, or the Bautista side? Who can forget the time WWE star Sami Zayn compared Trump to Hitler?
“Horrible nightmare last night. It was so weird, I was in Germany but the U.S. was Germany now? But from like, 80 years ago? So weird?” Zayn wrote on X following Trump’s victory in the 2016 election.
As for playing to the WWE crowd, it didn’t exactly work out for Hillary Clinton in 2008. If you’ve got plenty of bleach in your laundry room, go ahead and relive this promo video cut by “Hill-rod”, and then (metaphorically) promptly rinse out your eyes.
That said, Barack Obama and John McCain also cut cringeworthy videos for WWE fans at the time and obviously, one of them went on to win.
Can Trump ride the WWE vote to victory in 2024 as well?
Trump is scheduled to continue his outreach to wrestling fans and the young male voting bloc by appearing on a future episode of Calaway’s “Six Feet Under” podcast.
Calaway is widely considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. He certainly brought to life the greatest character of all time. He is a legend. But then, so is Trump.
Trump was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013, joining the Celebrity Wing. He was recognized for his involvement with WWE events including hosting WrestleMania IV and V, and participating in the “Battle of the Billionaires” at WrestleMania 23.
Trump and the Brothers of Destruction, or Bautista taming up with Kamala and Tampon Tim? Who do you got?
