If you attend a pro-wrestling show, the first thing you’ll notice is that most of the fans are wearing a T-shirt of their favorite wrestler. On March 25, the hallways of the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul, Minnesota, resembled an informal straw poll about All Elite Wrestling (AEW), one of the largest wrestling companies in the United States. Most of the night’s advertised talent—names such as Swerve Strickland, Kenny Omega, Orange Cassidy, Darby Allin, Thekla—were represented on the assembled torsos, allowing one to instantly clock the crowd’s favorites.But plenty of shirts were worn in support of a wrestler who wasn’t on the evening’s schedule: Brody King. The performer, whose given name is Nathan Blauvelt, is an imposing man, billed at 6 foot 5 and close to 300 pounds, with a long, scraggly beard and a body covered in gnarly tattoos. You could imagine him bouncing at a motorcycle bar or tossing strangers in a mosh pit. King has been a good guy, and he has been a bad guy, but mostly he’s a tough guy—someone who always seems like a threat.Recently, King has become a fan favorite for a reason that has nothing to do with his clothesline. Today’s wrestlers are more comfortable sharing their real-life opinions than remaining in character all of the time, and King’s politics are no secret: He’s performed in Mexico wearing an ABOLISH ICE shirt, and raised money for an immigration fund. Earlier this year, he was thrown into a short feud with the top champion of AEW—a cocky know-it-all named MJF, whose catchphrase is “I’m better than you, and you know it”—and something interesting happened. On February 4, moments into the first scheduled match between King and MJF at Las Vegas’s Pearl Theater, the crowd broke out into a very loud, very sustained, very unmistakable chant: “Fuck ICE.”This was airing live on TBS, uncensored. It’s a striking clip. As the wrestlers pause to take in the audience, King looks like Popeye after downing a can of spinach, as though he were ready to punch the sun. It was within weeks of the deaths of the Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents; public opinion had turned sharply against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement. The effect was visibly cathartic for those in attendance, with King seeming to channel a fed-up citizenry as he whipped MJF around the ring. The crowd went ballistic.[Read: From ‘I’m Not Mad at You’ to deadly shots in seconds]The incident caught my eye because I sometimes attend wrestling shows, and because of a pet theory that’s gained momentum among pundits over the past decade: that the style of pro wrestling actually explains a lot about modern politics. The way that politicians stretch the truth for their audience, and quickly swap stances, and lean into a blustering, exaggerated persona—all of that’s wrestling. Inevitably, proponents of this theory will point out that in his reality-TV days, Donald Trump himself once played a prominent role in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). He is the only president of the United States to have been on the receiving end of a Stone Cold Stunner.This theory tends to assert that both voters and wrestling fans want the showmanship, the big lie. But wrestling fans are fickle, opinionated, and unafraid to reject the product placed in front of them. (In 2013, when Trump was inducted into the WWE’s Hall of Fame at Madison Square Garden, he was booed off the stage.) Ironically, they may be less credulous than other sports fans, whose unshakable faith in a team can tip into delusion. Politics may creep into any sport, but it can feel closer to the surface in wrestling, which made me think their anti-ICE chants were less a momentary gesture of support for the character King is cultivating and more an authentic expression of feeling at a particularly charged and violent moment in American life.At the time, AEW was already scheduled to come to St. Paul in March for a live taping of Dynamite, its weekly television show. The Twin Cities have been ground zero for the nation’s agonies over ICE’s tactics, and it wasn’t too much of a leap to imagine the fans would once again voice their opinions—especially if King, the avatar of those sentiments, performed.I wanted to see how AEW would play to the local mood, though it seemed like a sensitive situation. The company didn’t make King available for interviews, and wouldn’t say if he would appear. And although it has an earthier brand than other wrestling promotions (it’s “for the sickos,” the tagline goes), AEW is a company catering to millions of Americans and their wide array of views, even on an issue where the public’s frustration has been growing.Wrestling fans know how to make themselves heard, but even the loudest voices can be ignored. Could, and should, a wrestling company offer a moment of televised resistance—and would it even want to?On the night of the Dynamite taping in St. Paul, the broader complex housing the Roy Wilkins Auditorium was also hosting a home game of the Minnesota Frost, a professional women’s-hockey team. Walking around, one could easily guess who was there for what. Wrestling fans lug around replica championship belts and sport lip rings and look like they carry cigarettes. Yet both events were fundamentally social. The fans were there together with friends or families. And they were ready to participate.“We’re part of the experience, and so wrestlers learn to kind of roll with what the fans want,” a man who identified himself as John, whose T-shirt had an outline of Minnesota and read ABOLISH ICE, told me. And what was his preference? “Fans do not like the federal thugs coming to our city and doing what they did.” For him it was personal: A “family man with kids and a job” who goes to his gym, he said, was “captured and beaten up” by ICE agents.John and other fans I spoke with weren’t sure if Brody would show up, but they recognized the fruitful timing: They’d seen the clips of King taking in the anti-ICE chants; they’d lived with the ICE officers’ presence in their own communities. But they knew this wasn’t a political rally. Nate, a college student wearing a King shirt, took the lack of advertising at face value; he was there for Kenny Omega and Swerve Strickland, two of AEW’s top stars who were scheduled to wrestle each other. Brent Nerenz, who lives in the Minneapolis suburbs, guessed the company didn’t want to encourage a vulgar chant. But he thought the crowd would be primed to erupt into one anyway.Wrestling isn’t very complicated. “It’s muscle guys hitting each other really hard,” a fan named K. Pierson told me—good guys serving justice to bad guys. The choreographed pageantry is like watching a stunt sequence being filmed in real time; you can’t really appreciate the spectacle of a human body intentionally hurtling itself through a table until that body, and that table, are right in front of you. The best matches whip up a reaction by setting up expectations, then subverting them, then ratcheting up the stakes some more until you just can’t take it. When a match is really effective, you won’t notice you’re scrunching your face and yelling “Get him!” until realizing, for some reason, that you’re no longer sitting. (Also, beer helps.)Brody King wrestles at a September 2025 event at the Arena México. (Carlos Santiago / SipaUSA / AlamyYet a wrestling show isn’t only about wish fulfillment. Processing disappointment is part of the fan experience—when you want a wrestler to win, are hoping with every cell that he does win, only he doesn’t. Real emotional bonds are formed between performer and fan during this chase, deepening the experience and intensifying the payoff. If the people watching aren’t actively engaged—clapping their hands, chanting in support or distaste, making expressive noises when a body goes through that table—then the match, no matter how athletically impressive, has been a failure.For this taping of Dynamite, the auditorium was set up for nearly 4,000, and most of the tickets had sold out. The Twin Cities are considered to be among the better wrestling towns, meaning that people show up and understand how to play their part. In the opening match, between Omega and Strickland, chants broke out in support of both wrestlers. At several points, when the clamor threatened to dip, a wrestler turned to the crowd and gestured with his hands to make some noise, at which point everyone started whooping and cheering again.But the crowd was happiest when the good guy came out on top; whenever the bad guys won, the vibe was always a little deflated. Sometimes the reaction was angrier. On multiple occasions, I watched audience members aggressively flip the bird at the villain. During one match, when the wrestler Marina Shafrir did something underhanded to her opponent, a “Fuck you, Marina” chant broke out. Cathartic, yes, but also crass. Before the show, Pierson had guessed that maybe the company was trying to minimize the on-air cursing, before acknowledging the obvious: “People are going to cuss, anyways.”[Read: The high art of pro wrestling]Pierson’s feelings were personal too: Earlier this year, he said, he “drove patrols everyday, chasing ICE guys around, getting them out of my part of town.” Of the chants, he said that “they should continue to do it as much as legally they’re allowed to on TV”—the key word being legally. Brandon Bjerke worked in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb where ICE had detained a 5-year-old boy, as seen in an infamous viral photograph. Bjerke was excited for the entire show, but said he was hoping King would make an appearance. “Just by having him here, I know the community would rally behind him a lot. I think there’s a lot of people looking forward to him showing up.”Part of the expectation had to do with AEW’s reputation as the more inclusive and liberal minded of the big wrestling companies—certainly compared with WWE, whose executives maintain close ties to the Trump administration. (Linda McMahon, one of its co-founders, is Trump’s education secretary.) AEW seemingly places fewer guardrails on what its performers can say or do, which is how King had been so forthright about his politics to begin with. But as the night rolled on, he hadn’t shown up. With half an hour to go, and two announced matches left, it wasn’t looking likely.Then, during a commercial break, a chant of “We want Brody” struck up from the crowd. It was modest, but clearly audible. Announcer Justin Roberts, who’d been chatting with the fans from the ring, played it off as a chant for Tony, as in Tony Schiavone, one of the commentators sitting ringside. Still, no King—no tease, even. Checking social media, I noticed that one fan had been spotted at ringside carrying an ABOLISH BRODY KING sign—proof that not everyone in the room felt identically.At the next commercial break, the same chant whipped up again—and this time, it was entirely unacknowledged. There could be many understandable reasons why King wouldn’t show up—he had an out-of-town commitment; he didn’t want to be pigeonholed; maybe it would put the wrong attention on him. But it felt like we were headed toward a flat ending.Back in Las Vegas in February, some of the news coverage about the chants had portrayed the incident as a novelty. Who would expect that sentiment at a wrestling show? Pro wrestling is still considered a lowbrow entertainment—meathead Kabuki, not a night at the opera. But discontent can be found anywhere, and the license to coarsely express oneself can be surprisingly cleansing. Something empowering happens when you’re in a wrestling crowd as the vibe is beginning to shift—as bystanders become participants, influencing what’s happening in front of them. The people I’d talked with hadn’t come to their feelings about ICE in a vacuum—the agency had affected their lives, and the lives of the people around them, and they saw a wrestling event as a potential outlet.And then came the final match, between the wrestlers Darby Allin and Rush. At this point, there was no real reason to believe King would show up. Then, something interesting happened. Rush, who is Mexican and whose character is best described as “confident jerk,” made some kind of provocative gesture at the crowd, which suddenly began to chant, “Fuck ICE; fuck ICE.” It died down, then returned. As I turned around, people in my area who’d otherwise been passively observing the show were joining in, and pumping their fists.When the chant quieted again, the room felt sharper, more present. An uptick of idle, buzzing conversation filled the air—people talking among themselves, jeering randomly. Allin won the match after some back-and-forth, but before he could really celebrate, another group of villains who wrestle under the moniker the Don Callis Family (named after their manager, Don Callis) came out to give him the beatdown. Fans started to chant “Fuck Don Callis,” and punctuated it with “And fuck ICE too.” As Allin flopped around, a sense of anticipation began to build. Again, wrestling isn’t very complicated. Typically, someone would come out to save this ailing hero—but who?You know who. As King finally ran out from backstage and slid into the ring, the reaction was more gratified than explosive. The intervention was plausibly spontaneous, as though it was manifested by the crowd’s energy. King was wearing a T-shirt and long pants, not his typical wrestling gear. Along with some allies, he drove the bad guys out of the ring. He barked at the crowd, which didn’t need any more prompting: The “Fuck ICE” chants returned, for the last and loudest time that night. As I looked around, not everyone was participating, but I didn’t see anyone flipping the bird; it was clear whom the audience recognized as the hero.Contrary to the modest expectations I’d encountered, AEW seemed to have recognized the moment. Yet there was one big caveat: The live-television broadcast was over, which meant that nobody at home knew King had appeared. Instead, he’d been slipped in at the last moment for the people in the room. (Still, news of his appearance spread online, where some fans wondered why he’d been left off the show.) As King stood triumphantly tall, his theme music, a gruff heavy-metal song, started to play over the loudspeakers, and he went ringside to take selfies. The lights went up; the energy in the room was dissipating. The show had now ended, but many fans crowded around to get their photo with him. I thought about how in wrestling, fans are conditioned to guess what comes next—this person will feud for the title, that person will get his revenge. Next week, King would be back in the storyline mix, teaming up with a group of guys against another group of guys; for his wrestling character, it was back to business. The fans would have to decide for themselves what it all meant after they headed home, to reality outside the ring.