‘WWE wrestling formed the blueprint!’ Munya Chawawa on Trump’s journey from Wrestlemania to the White House

It’s best to expect the unexpected from Munya Chawawa. For his latest trick, the comedian and writer is presenting a serious political thesis on Channel 4 while dressed in Lycra, in a wrestling ring, fighting his heroes. But why, I ask Chawawa, who is bright and perky on a video call a day before its broadcast. His answer sounds mad at first, but delve into it and it makes more sense:  "Because WWE wrestling – as in the world of oiled-up, budgie-smuggler-wearing superstars – has formed the blueprint for maybe the world's most powerful leader.”

Wrestling With Trump is the latest absorbing and funny political documentary from Chawawa whose brilliant satirical videos and parodies of political figures and celebrities have earned him a huge online following. In 2022 he made How To Survive a Dictator (exploring the life of Robert Mugabe and telling the story of how his family fled Zimbabwe) followed by a 2024 film about Kim Jong-un’s rule over North Korea. Last year he also founded the Black Boys Theatre Club in London to “dismantle the barriers – cultural, financial and emotional – that have historically made theatre feel off-limits to young Black boys.” 

This new show has a personal pull for Chawawa: as a child, he was a huge fan of WWE, the mock-combat wrestling industry that stages cartoonish, scripted contests, making stars out of participants such as Hulk Hogan, The Rock and John Cena. Fast forward to the adult Chawawa seeing Hogan on stage at a 2024 Trump rally, ripping his vest open and shouting the words "Make America Great Again":  “Seeing him aligned with Trump, who ticks so many Machiavellian, classic, Disney-villain boxes, was just such a brain-scrambling antithesis … Please don't tell me my childhood heroes are suddenly popping up in politics!”

Digging deeper, Chawawa found other wrestling figures circulating around Trump, including former WWE chief executive Linda McMahon, who became the US secretary of education. “These guys aren't meant to be involved in politics, and you go down the wormhole, and the wormhole became a documentary,” Chawawa says.

He was very good to wrestlers. He hosted WrestleManias [in 1988 and 1989]. He took part in WrestleManias [in 2004 and 2007]. He’s sort of proved himself in all of their initiations, and that's first and foremost why they like him. It's just a shame that somebody who has violated wrestling's number one rule, which is “don't try this at home”, not only has tried it at home, but has tried it in politics in the White House on a global stage. Now we're sort of all living in the fallout of that.

One thing is to warn us about the potential pitfalls of platforming these kinds of figures. If it's true that by letting Donald Trump stand in that ring and practise smack talk [banter to demoralise an opponent], and weave his own web of kayfabe [the portrayal of staged elements as legitimate and real action] … if that gave him the taste for blood, if that showed him the delights of saying what people love to hear – just like populist politics – everyone in wrestling has facilitated that, and the fans, myself included.

Even having Farage on I'm a Celeb, you know? That, no doubt, has been extremely helpful in creating this image whereby he's seen as a man of the people who will sit down and chow down on a kangaroo's anus. We sort of forget the fact that he's then receiving multimillion-pound donations or popping off to Kuala Lumpur to speak at an event which happens to advise rich foreigners how to avoid paying the appropriate tax. It just pushes the important stuff to our periphery.

It’s just incredible, man. Honestly, theatres opened their doors wide to us as soon as we announced it last year, and the public has rallied behind it. In terms of the club, we focused this year on putting more bums on seats, and so we've seen more plays than we've ever seen. It’s my pride and joy.

We went to see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [at the Old Vic] for the Black Boys Theatre Club, where we had a Q&A afterwards with the cast and crew, including Aaron Pierre … You could see these boys sort of couldn't quite believe it. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest obviously deals with mental illness, and in this iteration it was a near all-Black ensemble. For these young Black boys, this may be the first and last time they ever see such a raw portrayal and dissection of the mental health of Black men. And Sondheim's Into the Woods, which is on at [London’s] Bridge theatre. As a grown adult living in what can feel like quite a murky world, it's so magical. I'm inspired by theatre and its ability and bravery to stage any story of any kind – to transport us into worlds and to be one of the few remaining spaces and vessels of real human interaction.

The thing I always fantasise about, if I were to ever go into politics – which I wouldn’t – is that I would do a speech saying guys, listen up. I'm gonna be so real with you right now. I'm gonna make some mistakes. I'm gonna think some things are good decisions, try [them] out, and they won't be. My first and foremost pledge would just be to be honest about the systems and the procedures and the bureaucracy that make things either difficult or frustrate people. Part of the appeal of populist politicians is that they seem to be honest, even when what they're saying is not truthful.

Oh, and then I would say, guys, let's have a real chat about wealth distribution. We’re at a stage now where we've acquired such a learned helplessness about money, classism and wealth distribution that we turn on people who even try to suggest we should find ways to tax the super-rich. And I would want to ask the question: why is it always possible to squeeze the poor more, but it's impossible not to make the rich slightly richer?

Lime bikes! I am the Lime-bike king of the world. I'm probably about 1,600 rides deep. I’ve got my little helmet. Nothing brings me more joy than finding the perfect untouched Lime bike, a basket of luminescent green, with no half-eaten chicken wings or pigeon's head in it.

That mohawks will always be a big mistake because Google Images never forgets. And then I would just say, I wish I'd known the word “vicissitudes”, which, to my knowledge, means the naturally occurring ups and downs of life. Because you need rain and you need sun. You need both of those things. I would just give myself a bit more grace and say, you know, it's the ups and downs that make for a good life.

Wrestling with Trump is on Channel 4 at 10pm tonight, and then available to stream