Trump WWE.jpg

When he takes the oath of office in January, Donald Trump will be the first American President to also have a place in the WWE Hall of Fame.

(WWE screenshot)

The future president of the United States shaved the man's head bald. Restrained by two professional wrestlers, Vince McMahon bucked and screamed like a death row prisoner in a botched execution, while the president-elect slathered his skull with shaving cream and Bic-ed the last of the stubble down to the clean skin.

Thus ended Wrestlemania 23.

It's no secret, and even if you didn't know until now, it probably won't be any surprise -- Donald Trump was once a big deal in professional wrestling. When he takes the oath of office in January, he will be the first American president who's also an inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame.

And, let me tell you, he deserved that honor, because of all the performers in Wrestlemania 23, Trump was unquestionably the best actor.

Look, I'm not here to judge. I'm here to watch. It's time to get to know our president, so let's fire up the YouTube time machine and set the clock back to 2007.

Leading up to Wrestlemania 23, the WWE CEO, McMahon, had dissed the real-estate mogul by having a frumpy Trump impersonator wrestle a woman supposed to be Rosie O'Donnell. But Donald wasn't insulted by the fat orange guy in a bad blonde wig. He got his dander up because he didn't think the O'Donnell impersonator was ugly enough.

And what's the fun of watching two fat, ugly people fight if you don't have standards?

The beef escalated, with McMahon threatening Trump with his trademarked "billionaire bitch-slap" and Trump challenging the wrestling tycoon to a bet of the highest stakes -- the other man's hair.

The stage was set for the "Battle of the Billionaires," as it came to be known. Trump didn't need the electoral college to win that contest. The game, as they say, was rigged.

I have to admit, it's been a long time since I watched professional wrestling. Somewhat out of touch, I had to ask a coworker from Livingston, Ala., to catch me up on a few things.

This WWE? Whatever happened to the WWF?

"The World Wildlife Fund sued them for the name, so they had to change it," he said.

I guess the billionaire bitch-slap doesn't work in court.

No matter what you think of the president-elect, this was entertainment, rich with the sort of subtexts that make an English major's leg tingle. (Really, two billionaire white guys sending their minority muscle -- a black giant and a Samoan warrior -- into the ring to battle in their stead? Where can you get something like that outside of a Ralph Ellison novel?) It was salted with gauche displays, tacky even for a man who squats on a golden toilet seat.

And it's peppered with ironic moments that make the main event nine years later seem like just another installment of the same serial storyline.

Like when Trump promises to make Monday Night RAW great again and taunts McMahon -- just like he bullied Jeb Bush and Little Marco on the GOP stage.

Like when Stone Cold Steve Austin barks in the mogul's face and Trump's eyes squint and his lip pooches -- just like they did when Clinton blasted his abuse of women.

And when Trump boasts about a bogus poll of whose head Hollywood celebrities would rather shave --- you've heard this sort of thing since.

"I don't know if you've seen the latest poll," Trump says to McMahon. "I saw the other night, John Travolta -- he prefers Trump. I see others prefer Trump. The poll shows 95 percent of the Hollywood celebrities want your head shaved, and we're going to do it Vince."

And Wrestlemania 23 -- it was in Detroit, as in Michigan, where the Donald won ...

Just break it to me now. I'm in a coma, right? This Battle of the Billionaires and the 2016 election -- has this been playing on the hospital TV while a machine has been breathing for me?

Reality has twisted in on itself, and sorting the real from the fake is like counting the sides of a Mobius strip. It's both. It's neither.

In the waning days of the party primaries a political pal said to me, "Trump fans are just Bernie supporters who think wrestling is real."

He was wrong, but I sometimes worry that Trump supporters are Bernie bros who think politics is fake.

In democracy, like wrestling, jeering from the stands can be the closest spectators ever get to audience participation. It's easy to believe that politicians lie because it's part of the script, that the promises they make in the campaign don't comport with reality after election day, that the bluster and bravado from the campaign stump never really bleed over when the votes are counted.

And part of me even hopes that all of that is true.

Or fake? I can't keep up anymore.

But governing, Trump will soon learn, is real and difficult. Words matter, even in 140-character bursts at 3 a.m., and the wrong move can push an economy over a cliff or send good men and women to die in war.

There is no script. The punches hurt. The blood is real. And Trump is here, like it or not, to make it RAW!