Trump-Putin Encounter Reframed by MMA and Kayfabe

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 10 Mar 2025

Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens - TRANSCEND Media Service

Speculative Contrast between Political and Sports Commentary Using AI

Introduction

22 Feb 2025 – There is considerable anticipation of the historic encounter between Donald Trump and Vladirmir Putin. It is necessarily the focus of extensive commentary and speculation from a political perspective, especially given the violence engendered by the relation between Russia and the USA over recent years. The commentary is typically one-sided in the light of the editorial policies of the media in which it appears — deprecating the actions of the USA or Russia as completely unjustified and totally reprehensible. Commentators are embarrassed by the sudden reversal of US foreign policy with the election of Trump.

Little is said about the blow-by-blow elements of the anticipated dialogue between Trump and Putin — understood as the process of negotiation. Little is said about the dialogue/negotiation by their assistants in preparation for their encounter — other than crafted press releases in both cases. As argued separately, despite the extensive literature on the processes of different forms of dialogue variously advocated, there is no understanding of the process used in encounters of the highest global importance (Overview of a variety of approaches to dialogue and conversation, 2021). This contrasts curiously with the intense media coverage of global championships in any competitive sport. It would obviously be argued that such negotiations are best conducted in secret — with little objective commentary on their efficacity.

Given the extremely rapid emergence and development of AI, it is intriguing to note the many references to the manner in which it currently enables “dialogue”. However most such references are primarily focused on new forms of chatbot — not on the challenges of global meetings, as discussed separately (Imaginative use of AI in AI summitry? 2025; Use of ChatGPT to Clarify Possibility of Dialogue of Higher Quality, 2023; (Envisaging the AI-enhanced Future of the Conferencing Process, 2020). By contrast the future will see as somewhat extraordinary the current use of information technology to track “passing patterns” in ball sports — with seemingly little effort to track such patterns in conference dialogue.

Is AI even used subsequently to analyze the transcripts of conference dialogue — for reasons analogous to use of such analysis for ball sports? (Analysis by AI of Reports of UN Debate on Artificial intelligence, 2024). Could coherent meta-patterns of connectives of strategic relevance be elicited? Is it probable that any adaptation of AI to global summits will follow the existing pattern of dialogue facilitators and mediators with their proprietary processes — with each contested by those not contracted for the purpose? Is it not vital at this time to discover the specific failings of dialogue between leaders — as is so assiduously reviewed in the case of championship chess? How is higher quality dialogue to be elicited?

In this context there is a case for recalling the peculiar bond between Trump and Putin deriving from their shared appreciation for the extraordinarily violent dynamics of professional wrestling — promoted in the form of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). This is a full-contact fighting sport based on striking and grappling, incorporating techniques from various combat sports from around the world — seemingly unconstrained by “rules”. Potentially of great relevance is the manner in which those dynamics are framed contractually by kayfabe. This is the staged portrayal of extremely violent encounters as “real” or “true”, specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being deceptively genuine, namely not staged. It may be seen as the suspension of disbelief such as to create the non-wrestling aspects of promotions, such as feuds, angles, and gimmicks in a manner similar to other forms of fictional entertainment. Despite being presented as authentic, kayfabe acknowledges (even secretively) the staged, scripted nature of professional wrestling, as opposed to conventional competitive combat sports.

Given the shared enthusiasm of Trump and Putin for MMA, it is appropriate to explore the role of kayfabe in their planned encounters. Media commentators and politicians worldwide focus attentively on the degree to which Trump is variously asserted to be “lying” — or on the extent to which Russia engages in “disinformation”. Few academic analyses mention Trump’s involvement in professional wrestling and MMA, as the first President of the USA to have been be inducted into the World Wrestling Entertainment hall of fame:

As former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon has been nominated by Trump as US Secretary of Education. Of particular relevance is the role of kayfabe in the framing of reality in the worldview of Donald Trump — given his central role in reality TV. Is US foreign policy now best to be understood through the dynamics of “no-holds barred” professional wrestling (Gregory Hollin, The Wrestler and His World: precarious workers, post-truth politics, and inauthentic activism, Cultural Anthropology, 39, 2024, 4, as reviewed by Matthew Wills, Real Fake/Fake Real: Pro-Wrestling’s Kayfabe Conundrum, JSTOR Daily, 27 January 2025). As described by David Moon:

As the US political sphere becomes one gigantic pro wrestling arena, traditional theories and frameworks are inadequate for making sense of events. We need, therefore, to turn to pro wrestling for answers, particularly the industry-specific concept of “kayfabe”. Initially a label for the illusion that pro wrestling’s predetermined performances were “real”, today, kayfabe describes the peculiar way fans engage with pro wrestling as an acknowledged performance form. (Sad but true – Donald Trump really did wrestle his way into the White House (The Guardian, 14 December 2024; Kayfabe, Smartdom and Marking Out: Can Pro-Wrestling Help Us Understand Donald Trump? Political Studies Review, 20, 2022, 1)

Does the current reframing of reality by superpowers necessarily involve “lying” and “disinformation” to a high degree — and strategically so (Towards a Science of Misinformation and Deception, 2021; Reframing Fundamental Belief as Disinformation? 2020). Is deception and bluff as fundamental to international negotiations as it is to combat sports?

The following exercise is an effort to use the speculative skills of AI to offer a commentary on a MMA encounter between Trump and Putin. The purpose is to highlight the contrast to conventional political commentary. This appears to offer little more than severe deprecation of the reprehensible actions of one or the other — as perceived from a dubiously cultivated moral high ground. This misses the significance of the value associated with such unconstrained violence to an audience increasingly unenthralled by such effete commentary and the questionable agendas which it promotes.

The AIs from which the speculative commentary is sought in what follows were also challenged to compare the role of staged encounters with the central role of the savage Colosseum games of ancient Rome in engaging and distracting the population — games now deprecated despite the current appreciation of violence in the mass media and acknowledgement of its problematic effects. The political significance of those games continues to be the subject of academic commentary (The Colosseum: An Important Political Tool For The Roman Empire, EcoTraveller Guide, 2 December 2022; Leo Cullis, The Colosseum: A Political Tool, History in Politics, 6 March 2021; Anthony Arpin, Il Colosseo: On the Politics and Propaganda that Persisted Past Previous Periods in the Colosseum, Art History Presentation Archive, 27 January 2007; Morad Shaddat, The Roman Colosseum: Where Bloodshed Masked Political Shenanigans, LinkedIn, 19 February 2024; Siobhán McElduff, Imperial Sponsorship of the Games, Spectacles in the Roman World, 2020).

Whilst fatalities in the bloody conflicts of MMA are only rare and accidental, those associated with the conflict in Ukraine have been recently estimated (Bojan Pancevski, One Million Are Now Dead or Injured in the Russia-Ukraine War, Wall Street Journal, 17 September 2024). For comparison, it is estimated that approximately 400,000 individuals perished in the Colosseum events held there over several centuries — two millennia ago. These events included gladiatorial combats, public executions, and animal hunts. Additionally, it is estimated that around one million animals were killed during these spectacles (Ellen Curtin, 7 Blood-Soaked Facts about the Colosseum, Dark Rome, 14 January 2020). Those estimates invite comparison with current estimates of 824,000 on-screen fatalities across 476 films (All Kill Counts Sorted by Number of Deaths, Dead Meat). It has not been possible to estimate the number of fatalities in the video gaming in which so many regularly engage.

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