Trump pick Linda McMahon's WWE era: Everything you need to know

President-elect Donald Trump’s selection Wednesday of former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon to run the Small Business Administration elevated a longtime business associate and ardent supporter who had been briefly critical of the New York reality TV star during his presidential primary campaign.

The Trumps and McMahons have a history of doing deals together since the late 1980s. That’s when Trump hosted two consecutive WrestleMania pay-per-views in Atlantic City. Trump went on to become a regular on WWE television, appearing so often that he became a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. And the McMahons went on to become the largest donors to Trump’s personal foundation, giving $5 million between 2007 and 2009.

McMahon was briefly at odds with Trump’s campaign when she decided to back New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the presidential primaries and called some of Trump’s comments about women “deplorable” in a March interview with Yahoo.

“He’s not helping, certainly, to put women in the best light,” McMahon said at the time about Trump’s comments. “Maybe he regrets them, maybe he doesn’t. I realize he punches hard when he punches back, but that’s just over the top.”

But McMahon added that Trump was a “patriot” who hired “smart people around him,” and by summer bygones were bygones and she was a pro-Trump Connecticut delegate to the Republican Convention.

McMahon oversaw WWE’s rise from a small regional wrestling promotion to a billion-dollar, publicly traded global entertainment company, serving as president and CEO for over a decade. She was involved in many of the licensing deals that allowed the company to begin selling toys, music, movies and nearly every other conceivable piece of merchandise. Perhaps most importantly, she was involved with getting pro wrestling classified as entertainment and not sport, which allowed it to avoid regulations from athletic commissions. McMahon stepped down from the company in 2009 in order to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut. She won the Republican nomination twice, in 2010 and 2012, but lost in her general election races both times despite spending nearly $100 million of her own money on the bids.

Her time with the WWE was not without controversy. In 1993, her husband, Vince, was charged by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York with perpetuating a steroid ring among his wrestlers in order to make them more muscular and appealing to audiences. Two of the charges were dismissed, and Vince McMahon was acquitted of the third, but a memo later surfaced from Linda McMahon suggesting they inform one of the doctors involved with steroid distribution about the criminal investigation. The WWE has revamped its wellness program over the years and was involved in a congressional hearing in 2007 over its handling of drugs.

The WWE also has been sued by dozens of former employees over the company’s handling of concussions and neurological health issues. The complaint said that the “WWE placed corporate gain over its wrestlers’ health, safety, and financial security, choosing to leave the plaintiffs severely injured and with no recourse to treat their damaged minds and bodies.” The WWE classifies its wrestlers as “independent contractors,” leaving them without access to government programs and allowing the company to avoid paying for health insurance or into Social Security and unemployment insurance. There have been efforts to organize a wrestling union — including by future Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura in the 1980s — but they have failed. An article published in the University of Louisville Law Review concluded that the “WWE has been illegally depriving its wrestlers of millions in benefits for nearly fifty years.”

But McMahon’s role has not been strictly behind the scenes, as the WWE television programming has always been a family business. Vince McMahon first served as an announcer before transitioning to his role of Mr. McMahon, a corporate antagonist who served as the perfect foil for everyman “Stone Cold” Steve Austin in one of the most popular storylines in professional wrestling history. The McMahon children, Shane and Stephanie, have also been involved over the years, wrestling in matches, serving as authority figures and in some instances being offered up for forced weddings (Stephanie) and jumping off very tall objects (Shane).

Linda McMahon’s storylines, which primarily took place between 1999 and 2005, were varied, but mainly focused on her role as a face (good guy) authority figure feuding with her husband over control of the company, of which she was the real-life CEO at the time. Perhaps her most famous and ridiculous role occurred from late 2000 through April 2001, when she was fictionally institutionalized with a nervous breakdown after her husband had asked her for a fictional divorce over a company power struggle. The story went that Vince was having Linda pumped full of sedatives and that he was having an affair with wrestler Trish Stratus. Eldest child Shane returned to challenge dad to a match for his mother’s honor. During the match, Linda rose from her stupor and delivered a low blow to her husband that helped Shane win and garnered a giant reaction from the Houston crowd.

McMahon was on the receiving end of some scripted violence as well. On a 2005 episode of “Monday Night Raw,” she came out to confront Austin after he had delivered a Stone Cold Stunner — his signature move — to the other members of her immediate family. After admonishing the star and then sharing a beer with him, Austin delivered a Stunner to the future member of the Trump administration:

McMahon was simply setting a precedent for Trump, who received a Stone Cold Stunner of his own in 2007 following a “Battle of the Billionaires” storyline with Vince McMahon:

That was not the first time McMahon mixed it up with some of the WWE employees. As part of a storyline in 2003, she took a Tombstone Piledriver on the steel stage from the wrestler Kane, which led to another match with Shane defending her honor:

Linda McMahon also has served as a manger multiple times. In 2000 she was part of the main event at WrestleMania, escorting wrestler Mick Foley to the ring and supporting him in a four-way match where there was a McMahon family member in every corner. In 2003, she escorted daughter Stephanie to the ring for a match against Vince. (Vince has wrestled both of his children in pay-per-view matches.) Linda threw in the towel for their daughter to end the match after Vince was fictionally choking Stephanie with a lead pipe. She also briefly turned heel (bad guy), firing and then delivering a low blow to beloved announcer Jim Ross.

The McMahon family has worked to clean up the image of the WWE, toning down the content on their shows in order to earn a TV-PG rating versus the previous TV-14 and doing a great deal of charity work, but some of the company’s issues will likely dog McMahon through her SBA confirmation hearing as they did through both of her Senate campaigns.