It has been more than a decade since Donald Trump last appeared on World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programming as a special guest – but former stars are resurfacing and giving their backing to his 2024 campaign for president.

At this summer’s Republican National Convention, Terry Bollea – AKA Hulk Hogan, the all-American hero – ripped off his shirt to reveal a bright-red Trump 2024 tank top and, in a riff on his own catchphrase, exclaimed: “Let Trumpamania run wild, brother!”

Last week, in a sit-down interview with wrestler-turned-media-personality Tyrus, the former president warned listeners that manhood was under attack and religion was being mocked in the US.

And on Monday, Trump – who recently cancelled a slew of interviews with traditional outlets – traded compliments on an hour-long podcast hosted by Mark Calaway, better known as beloved WWE icon The Undertaker.

“You know what you’ve done? You’ve made politics fun again,” Mr Calaway said.

Listening intently, with his hands clasped and a smile on his face, the three-time Republican presidential nominee approvingly replied: “Yeah.”

It is perhaps an unusual place to campaign in the closing days of a tight US presidential race. But for Trump, the only WWE Hall of Famer ever to make it to the White House, the visual reverberates across social media.

A lot of Americans tune out politics until the tail end of an election year and then “just go with the most recent thing they remember”, said Abraham Josephine Riesman, a freelance journalist and author of the book Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America.

Commenting on the latest Trump media strategy, Ms Riesman told the BBC: “There’s a lot of people who listen to wrestling podcasts, and you’re going to get a lot of people who identify as apolitical or unorthodox.”

Young men are among the key groups the Trump camp hopes to lure using podcasts and social media as well as the wrestling world. Those avenues have become essential to showcase Trump, his advisers said in a recent interview with Semafor. Trump was “a star”, senior communications adviser Alex Bruesewitz told the site.

“I think what we’re doing better this time around than he’s ever done before is leveraging Trump as a person: the celebrity of Donald Trump, the unmatched aura of Donald Trump — that’s a very popular word on TikTok, by the way,” he said.

In her book Ringmaster, Ms Riesman argues that to understand the 78-year-old’s rise, fall and comeback in American politics is to see it through the lens of professional wrestling – its art of blending fiction and reality, its psychology of elevating emotion through hyperbole, and its ability to transform the reviled into the righteous.

“In short, you say truths, outright lies and half-truths in the middle, with an equal amount of enthusiasm and sincerity at all times,” said Ms Riesman.

But, she warns, the danger of politics becoming like wrestling is that it becomes “about the thrill, about the self-identification” rather than about policies and principles.

Long before he entered politics, Trump grew up watching wrestling as a child in Queens, New York and he has always professed a deep reverence for its larger-than-life entertainers.

His rise as a businessman has many parallels to the rise of the WWE, under ex-CEO Vincent Kennedy McMahon, from a regional promotion into the largest in the world. Both men took the reins of family companies and built empires.

Flourishing under the deregulated capitalism of post-Reagan America, they also escaped scrutiny, with Trump later accused of stiffing workers and Mr McMahon depriving his athletes of healthcare benefits.

In the late 1980s, the pair’s paths converged when Trump hosted the WWE’s marquee WrestleMania event in back-to-back years at his hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

In 2007, the two men entered into a storyline rivalry, in which Trump challenged the WWE chairman’s authority and even once showered fans with dollar bills from the rafters.

“Those were the first times that Trump had ever given speeches to large, rowdy crowds that wanted red meat,” says Ms Riesman.

The feud culminated in a “Battle of the Billionaires” at WrestleMania 23, with wrestlers fighting on the two men’s behalf and a stipulation that the losing billionaire would have their heads shaved bald.

The show generated more pay-per-view buys than any programme the company had ever put on up to that point, according to Bryan Alvarez, a long-time wrestling journalist and podcaster.

“There were a lot of matches on that show,” he said, “but people were super into the idea of one of these guys getting their heads shaved.”

Since his 2013 Hall of Fame induction, Trump has not appeared on WWE programming – and with the evolution of its brand and the diversification of its weekly product, it is unlikely he ever will again.

But, as president, he added Mr McMahon’s wife, Linda, to his cabinet as small business administrator. She now also chairs the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute.

As Trump seeks a return to the Oval Office, not every former WWE personality is on board.

In a viral advert aired last week on late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s show, former wrestler Dave Bautista – once known as “The Animal” Batista – ridiculed the presidential candidate as “a weak, tubby toddler” who “wears more makeup than Dolly Parton”.

“A lot of men seem to think that Donald Trump is some kind of tough guy. He’s not,” he said.

Yet some of the most recognisable figures in pro wrestling lore may be helping Trump break through in unconventional ways.

“If you asked a man on the street if they know Hulk Hogan, even a non-fan is going to say yes. (Trump) is hitching his wagon to people that he thinks are big-time stars,” Mr Alvarez told the BBC.

“He’s a character, a performer, and the things he says, the way he attacks his opponents, the way he puts himself over – it’s absolute total pro wrestling.”

At one point in his interview with Trump on Monday, Mr Calaway said pro wrestlers, like politicians, have to “make people care” in order to truly excel.

“You’ve been a master of this,” he remarked as Trump leaned forward with interest.

“You’ve got to make people care one way or another. Either they love you or they hate you.”

Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe shouted anti-colonial slogans at King Charles during his visit to the Australian parliament on Monday, shocking assembled lawmakers and other dignitaries.

“Give us our land back! Give us what you stole from us!” Thorpe screamed in an almost minute-long diatribe, after the 75-year-old king’s speech.

“This is not your land, you are not my king,” the independent lawmaker said, decrying what she described as a “genocide” of Indigenous Australians by European settlers.

Australia was a British colony for more than 100 years, during which time thousands of Aboriginal Australians were killed and entire communities displaced.

The country gained de facto independence in 1901, but has never become a fully fledged republic. King Charles is the current head of state.

Charles is on a nine-day jaunt through Australia and Samoa, the first major foreign tour since his life-changing cancer diagnosis earlier this year.

Thorpe is known for her attention-grabbing political stunts and fierce opposition to the monarchy.

When she was sworn into office in 2022, Thorpe raised her right fist as she begrudgingly swore to serve Queen Elisabeth II, who was then Australia’s head of state.

“I sovereign, Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” she said before being rebuked by a Senate official.

“Senator Thorpe, Senator Thorpe, you are required to recite the oath as printed on the card,” said the chamber’s president Sue Lines.

In 1999, Australians narrowly voted against removing the queen, amid a row over whether her replacement would be chosen by members of parliament, not the public.

In 2023 Australians overwhelmingly rejected measures to recognise Indigenous Australians in the constitution and to create an Indigenous consultative assembly.