WWE President Nick Khan said it could be too tough today to run political storylines like the corporate used to.
Khan sat down with Bill Simmons for an interview on Friday promoting WrestleMania weekend, and was asked whether the corporate could run storylines commenting on real life, prefer it used to.
“Would you ever consider doing the ’80s thing, using WWE to merit things happening in real life? Like among the political stuff.”
“Tough,” Khan replied. “It’s too tough with the political environment now. To have, like, ICE officers arresting Dragon Lee.”
Simmons laughed with Khan and said that will be terrible, but clarified that he meant either a “Super Left Liberal” heel or a “Super MAGA” character.
“We did it for a moment of time for NXT when were coming out COVID; the guy who’s within the Wyatt Sicks now, Joe Gacy, before he would body slam you he would apologize. It didn’t work. He’s like, ‘I’m very sorry I actually have to wrestle you.’ Every part, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.'”
Simmons re-directed onto how the audience used to just accept storylines of that nature, noting one exception to that rule as Sergeant Slaughter aligning with Iron Sheik as ‘Iraqi Sympathizers.’
“Life is wrestling, wrestling is life. Each reflect each other,” Khan said. “However the Sergeant Slaughter thing where he’s an Iraqi sympathizer. Brings within the Iron Sheikh as Colonel Mustafa, brings in Adnan Al-Kaissie as General Adnan. Sheikh speaking Farsi and never Arabic.”
Simmons said he thought it was the craziest thing and couldn’t imagine it ran, to which Khan agreed.