Munya Chawawa has made a documentary, Wrestling With Trump, that draws a straight line from Donald Trump’s political style to the theatrics of WWE. described the film as punchy, passionate and weirdly uplifting, and said Trump is the ultimate showman.
The film argues that Trump and his team have borrowed from pro wrestling’s playbook: hyperbole, smack talk and kayfabe, the pretence that everything in wrestling is real. In the paper’s words, it is a world where “the biggest and the best. Except, of course, if it’s the worst.”
That comparison lands now because Trump is once again a defining force in US politics, and the documentary is trying to explain why his style still works. Chawawa, who has been a wrestling fan since childhood, uses WWE as a lens for understanding a politics built on spectacle, loyalty tests and a constant performance of strength.
The backdrop matters. WWE was founded by Vince McMahon and his since-estranged wife Linda, and the business has long traded on the idea that the audience is in on the act even while pretending not to be. That makes it a useful model for Chawawa’s argument that Trump’s appeal depends less on policy detail than on how convincingly he can sell a story.
There is also an uneasy contrast inside that world. Vince McMahon resigned from various business roles in 2024 after allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault, while Linda McMahon is now the US secretary of education. The same entertainment empire that helped shape the language of modern spectacle sits uncomfortably close to the machinery of government.
Chawawa meets a professional wrestler who has spent years performing under the character name Progressive Liberal, a reminder that wrestling has always been able to turn politics into costume, conflict and audience participation. The documentary’s point is not just that Trump borrows from wrestling, but that both depend on making the audience choose a side before it asks too many questions.
That is why the film’s central idea is sharper than a simple comparison. It suggests Trump’s people have not merely adopted wrestling’s language; they have built a political style around the same rule that governs the ring: “Nothing is true except what you are told you see.”
