When WWE’s recruiting pool hit an all-time low in the mid-2000s, McMahon began to rely on big names—celebrities and former popular stars—to buoy his signature wrestling event, WrestleMania, and cover up for a lack of talent and star power. In 2007, McMahon invited Austin and Donald Trump to be a part of WrestleMania 23 at Detroit’s Ford Field in front of 80,000 fans.

Trump had gone on the WWE’s flagship show Monday Night Raw to issue a challenge in a promo that would include what have now become classic tropes of his political persona: burying the media, comparing Rosie O'Donnell to a dog, and insulting his opponent while soaking in the admiration of rabidly cheering fans.

“I’m taller than you,” Trump tells McMahon in the ring face to face. “I’m better looking than you. I think I’m stronger than you, and I am here to challenge you to a match at WrestleMania...One hundred percent, I would kick your ass.”

McMahon suggests that they pick wrestlers to fight in their stead. Donald agrees. “You pick a representative, I pick a representative. If you lose, I get to shave your head. If I lose, you get to shave my head,” Trump says. It was promoted as the main event of the evening, the “Battle of the Billionaires” in a Hair vs Hair match with Stone Cold Steve Austin as the special guest referee. Trump chose Bobby Lashley, who has since found success as the TNA wrestling champion, while McMahon decided to be in the corner of the “Samoan Bulldozer” Umaga (who passed away two years later).

By the end of the night, after Donald's boy had won and McMahon was shaved bald, Austin would leave with a story that no other wrestler could top, and one that he's never told in this much detail.



“Vince says to me, ‘Steve, I’m going to see if I can get Donald to take the Stunner,’" Austin recalls, referring to his signature finishing move, where he kicks an opponent in the gut then performs a sit-down jawbreaker. "I said, ‘you think?’ He says, ‘Oh yeah, it’ll be great, it’ll be great.’ He goes up to Donald and says, ‘Hey Donald, this is Stone Cold Steve Austin.’ I shook Donald’s hand. He goes, ‘Listen, I want to know if after the match, when everything is done, if Steve could hit the Stone Cold Stunner on you.’ Donald says, ‘You think it’d be a good thing?’ and Vince goes, ‘Oh, of course it would be. It would just blow the roof off the place.’ And Donald’s right hand guy was saying, ‘No, no, no! You don’t need to do this, we got other things to do!’ He’s trying to talk him out of it. And Donald says to Vince, ‘You think it’ll help?’ and Vince goes, ‘I promise you it’ll help.’ And Donald says, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’

Austin pulled it off seamlessly, leaving Trump splayed on the mat, but it wasn't one of his best. "It wasn’t a picture-perfect stunner," Austin says, "but I give Donald Trump a hell of a lot of credit for being a man. He was a stand-up guy, he was there to do business and we did business, so I respect the man for that. If I see him giving a speech on the TV, I don’t think, ‘Hey, I gave this guy a stunner.’ We were doing business and we did business. The fact that he is going to be the next President of the United States, it’s a hell of a story.”