WWE Fans Protest Donald Trump’s Hall of Fame Status At SummerSlam Event

– A group of WWE fans demonstrated outside of the Barclays Center at a SummerSlam event protesting Donald Trump being in the Hall of Fame. Gothamist reports that the group, led by thirty year-old John Stevens, were outside of the event protesting due to Trump’s press conference in which the President said that “many sides” were at fault for the Charlottesville violence and said there were “some very fine people” on the alt-right side.

Stevens said, “We were talking about how Trump gave that crazy press conference, and then thought about how he’s in the WWE Hall of Fame even though Hulk Hogan got kicked out over racism. What Trump has done is remarkably worse than what Hogan did, since he’s dividing the country by siding with neo-Nazis and white nationalists…I was sickened by that press conference, and his response to Charlottesville. Basically WWE is endorsing those comments by having [Trump] in their hall of fame. I can’t wrap my brain around the fact that they’d leave him in there, take Hogan out and claim they say they care about racism.”

Stevens has publicized the rally on the website RacistWWE.com and noted that some of the protesters attended a signing with Jinder Mahal on Thursday night to hand out flyers for the protest.

“It’s kind of a gut-check moment for the WWE,” he said. “If they want to put their fans in this position, especially minority fans, and insult them to their faces by supporting someone who supports white nationalists, they can do that. But the backlash, I think, will be severe.”

Stephen Miller, who was also part of the protest, said of WWE, “They have two options; leave someone who defends neo-Nazis and white supremacists in the Hall of Fame and accept that their fans will look at them as hypocrites the next time they take a stand about racism, homophobia or other forms of prejudice, or have a spine and stand up to racism. If they choose to leave him in the HOF I will question whether or not I’ll continue to watch their product.”

The two said that they have rallies planned for WWE NXT “Takeover: Brooklyn III” event on Saturday and SummerSlam on Sunday as well. Stevens said that while the company can always ignore the group outside the arena, “We might protest during the shows, we’ve got prime seats,” he told Gothamist. “Where our seats are, you’d definitely see it, you’d hear the chants. WWE could take care of this problem now, or they could have it come up during one of their biggest pay-per-views of the year and have it be on the WWE Network forever.”