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When Newcastle United takeover talks goes up a gear you can guarantee one thing: WWE owner Vince McMahon’s name is going to be linked somewhere along the line.

Betfair are pricing McMahon making a bid for United at 66/1 – longer odds than US President Donald Trump – but his name is trending on Tyneside.

McMahon taking over Newcastle sounds far-fetched, right? Well it is – but maybe not quite as crazy as it first sounds. Here’s the full story about why McMahon’s name is linked to Newcastle – and the verdict from those ‘in-the-know’ about wrestling matters about whether there’s anything at all in it.

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Football twitter was in its (relative) infancy in 2011 when the preposterous idea that McMahon – the billionaire owner of WWE – was interested in taking over at Newcastle grew legs. It energised a certain section of the fanbase at a time when Ashley takeover rumours had died down but no one was really taking it particularly seriously.

It started as a social media rumour in America and took on enough significance for our reporters to run it past the club. The Sunday Sun put it to United’s press office at the time and it was knocked back immediately as “nonsense”. “We wouldn’t even comment on that,” a spokesman said at the time.

Even though there was a denial it periodically crops up on the internet – a 2014 story on winnersports.co.uk claimed McMahon was “sniffing around”. And is there more to it than that?

Stateside wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer – who has close links to the McMahon family – reckons there was. But he says it’s correct that Vince, the man who once had his head shaved by Trump in the middle of the squared circle as part of a wrestling “storyline”, had no interest in buying United. “I don’t think Vince would even know Newcastle had a team,” he told me last year.

Instead it was son Shane, a confirmed football fan as well as an on-screen wrestler and writer for the company, who was part of a consortium looking to invest in a Premier League club. Newcastle was one of those they were interested in, Meltzer says. “I don’t know how close it came,” he says. “But Shane was interested as part of a group.”

Of course Ashley has put the club up for sale before but despite speculation, he’s never really come close to parting with the asset he paid for nearly a decade ago.

MD Derek Llambias said back in 2009 that the club had expressions of interest but ranked most of them as “tyre kickers”. There have always been takeover rumours swirling around the club since – but it was not until this summer that they started to take on even more significance. Monday’s formal announcement the club is up for sale marks Ashley officially planting the “for sale” signs on St James’ Park’s lawn.

In 2009 when McMahon was linked Ashley was reported to want £100million for the club, but he would probably want triple that now when you factor in the debt that would have to be cleared. Even wrestling magnates worth $1.1billion might not be keen on forking out that.