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Americana: Professional wrestling and politics
By Zach Arnold | January 5, 2006
In America, there has recently been a big political scandal regarding an individual named Jack Abramoff, who resided in Washington, D.C. and became very friendly with many politicians.
Today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (behind a firewall/subscription, sadly), in the state of Wisconsin, has a report regarding a politician using one of Mr. Abramoff’s aides to get tickets to pro-wrestling events in Washington (likely WWE?). Quote from the MJS article:
Also Wednesday, Mark Graul, former chief of staff to Green, one of two Republican candidates for governor, denied reports on a Web log (talkingpointsmemo.com) that Graul repeatedly asked an Abramoff aide for tickets for himself to Washington events such as pro wrestling matches, sporting events and even a rock concert.
Graul, who is now managing Green’s campaign for governor, said the report was written by a “liberal blogger with an ax to grind.” Graul said he hasn’t seen the original documents on which the blog was based.
According to the blog, Graul’s requests for tickets were relayed to Abramoff or his aides through Jennifer Calvert, who worked for a Washington lobbying firm.
“The only thing that I recall attending with Jennifer Calvert was a Bucks game,” said Graul, who denied making repeated requests for favors and had no explanation for why his name repeatedly shows up on documents on the blog as requesting tickets for six Washington events in 2000 and 2001.
“I’ve never met Jack Abramoff in my life,” Graul said.
So there’s your tangential (or not) pro-wrestling connection to a political scandal. Of note, I did a search on the Talking Points Memo site and could not find the story about Graul wanting pro-wrestling tickets. The MJS report says that the claim of pro-wrestling tickets is in documents provided on the site. Full disclosure: I only searched through TPM’s web pages and not any of the actual indictment/court documents, yet.
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