Pro Wrestling in the News

Jesse Walker | October 22, 2004

Jesse Ventura has just endorsed John Kerry. Rumor has it The Iron Sheik is backing Bush. And I've got it on good authority that part-time wrestler Andy Kaufman is alive and well and running for president under the name Michael Peroutka.

Comments

|10.22.04 @ 6:43PM|#

I'm sitting tight until I hear whom Rowdy Roddy Piper endorses.

|10.22.04 @ 7:03PM|#

You know, who an ex-wrestler endorses SHOULD be a joke. This could have serious implications for how Minnesota votes, and thus for determining the next president.

But I choose to ignore all that, and pretend I live in a better world than I actually do.

HA! Look at the freaks! Wrestlers endorsing a president - it must be part of a storyline on WWE.

|10.22.04 @ 7:15PM|#

Well, although Jesse was a wrestler, I think one of his latest jobs was governor of Minnesota. Doesn't that give him some right to speak about politics? Christ.

As to who Rowdy Roddy Piper would endorse, I would like to know, too. He was in 'They Live', which was kind of a libertarian movie, so maybe he's leaning Badnarik?

|10.22.04 @ 7:38PM|#

I haven't seen "They Live" yet, but I've heard good things about it.

I have seen Rowdy Roddy Piper in the visionary drama "Hell Comes to Frogtown," in which Piper portrays one of the last fertile men left in America after a devastating postapocalyptic plague. He is conscripted to travel around looking for fertile females to impregnate, to build up the human population of the United States again. He has to wear an armored jockstrap thingy labeled "Property of the Provisional U.S. Govt."

This is also an important film for libertarians, raising as it does questions about the morality of conscription for a "greater good." And also, human-sized mutant talking frogs.

|10.22.04 @ 7:41PM|#

Sure, Ventura has the right to speak, but after starting with plenty of high hopes and a Reason interview (and maybe cover? I don't recall), I don't think many people in Minnesota were sorry to see him leave office. A major disappointment.

Our surprise celebrity governor out here in California seems to be doing a much better job, I'm happy to say.

|10.22.04 @ 8:00PM|#

I thought you were kidding, threadweakener, but I see you weren't. Gotta check that one out.

Papaya - if not keeping promises, etc, was grounds to not speak on politics once you were removed from them, a lot of folks would need to stfu. That's all I'm saying'.

|10.22.04 @ 9:58PM|#

One wonders why y'all don't have a write-up about the Duma's vote regarding Kyoto.

clark|10.22.04 @ 10:00PM|#

I hear that Andre (Marrou) the Giant has endorsed Badnarik.

Ruthless|10.22.04 @ 10:44PM|#

Unknown to most of you nerds, throbbing masses of feminine pulchritude here on H&R have been clamoring for an image of the likes of me.
Not one to dissappoint, here it is.

Seriously, even many ordinary follks here in my 'hood have overlooked my collapsed bird cage chest to compare me to Nature Boy!

http://www.usatoday.com/life/gallery/wrestling/nature-boy.jpg

ed|10.22.04 @ 10:45PM|#

Kyoto?
Something's rotten in Petrograd.

|10.22.04 @ 11:16PM|#

JB,

What can they write about Kyoto that will meet with your approval? :-)

Why not go ahead and air/type your views on it.

|10.23.04 @ 2:59AM|#

Thank you for justifying my faith in you Jessee.

Organized religion is indeed a crutch for weak minded people.

Dave Barry|10.23.04 @ 3:59AM|#

This is also an important film for libertarians, raising as it does questions about the morality of conscription for a "greater good." And also, human-sized mutant talking frogs.

One too many "also's," threadweakener, but otherwise a standup impression.

|10.23.04 @ 11:19AM|#

Until recently, the vast majority of pro wrestlers (in the WWF/WWE, anyway) were Republican. Something about how they all started out in pool halls and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made a living for themselves by their own blood, sweat, tears, etc.

More recently, there has been a bit of an anti-Iraq thing going on, though.

|10.23.04 @ 11:49AM|#

The most shocking bit of news to me is that Tom Brokaw actually uttered Badnarik's name on the air last night on the NBC Nightly News. Talk about hell freezing over.

They had a story about about Nader, then he paused and said "Only one minor party candidate is on the ballot in more states than Nader - Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik" they showed his picture (I couldn't see it from where I was) and went to commercial.

Woo-hoo! 5 seconds on the evening news.

Amazingly my mom tells me that my farmer uncle "likes Badnarzdik too". :)

I was about as shocked last week when I woke up to NPR Morning Endition doing a story on him.

And when I checked the "Candidate Matcher" just released by the TV station run by the local newspaper (I figured the'd only list Bush and Kerry) I was delighted to find that they listed all of the presidential candidates on the Ohio Ballot.

If this kind of press started earlier, MB and Cobb might not have been arrested at the St. Louis "debates".

|10.24.04 @ 12:54AM|#

Could someone please get a hold of Danny Elfman? I want to read about an entertainment star endorsing Badnarik.

|10.24.04 @ 12:41PM|#

Neb Okla,

Thanks for the link! I took the test and got Badnarik as my #1, Bush and the Constitution party guy #2 and #3 (close), and Kerry a very distant #4.

I didn't realize Badnarik was "good" - mainly from his anti-war position :-)

|10.25.04 @ 11:04AM|#

The Nature Boy Ric Flair, The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels, and Jon Bradshaw Layfield (of Smackdown and Fox News) have all endorsed Bush.

Mick "Mankind" Foley is a known Kerry supporter.

The Gobbledygooker remains undecided.

|10.25.04 @ 11:52PM|#

People, I have some shocking news that utterly dwarfs in importance the tawdry affair of the upcoming election.

Either the good people at the Internet Movie Data Base (us.imdb.com) really screwed up the entry, or else...

... NOT ONLY did someone make a movie called "Hell Comes to Frogtown" in 1987, starring Rowdy Roddy Piper (and I have seen it! with my own eyse!)

... but...

... apparently in 2002 somebody did a REMAKE of the thing! AND TWO SEQUELS!

If ever a movie cried out for a remake, "Hell Comes to Frogtown" is probably not it.

I am boggled.