The two planned the new Harrah’s at Trump Plaza, cutting a deal ridiculously fortuitous to Trump: He was paid to build the casino, he received an equal profit share and was amortized from operational losses in the casino’s first five years. The company, then the owners of Harrah’s, already owned a casino at the marina and wanted to expand. He had a novel way of doing it, too, basically getting Holiday Inn to fund his casino construction project. So Trump went to get his start in Atlantic City. Trump Plaza was the first casino to open with the backing of the AG the hearing lasted seven minutes (he’d been preliminarily investigated for two hours earlier). (No charges were ever filed a later investigation, after the release of Barrett’s book, found Trump was not a target.) He was recommended by the attorney general’s Division of Gaming Enforcement and licensed by the Casino Control Commission. According to New Jersey law, a casino license must be denied if the applicant fails to disclose all relevant past brushes with the law, even investigations. According to Wayne Barrett’s 1990 book Trump: The Deals and the Downfall, Trump had been interviewed in a federal bribery investigation in 1979. Like professional wrestling, though, that’s mostly an act.ĭonald Trump probably shouldn’t even have gotten a license to operate a casino in Atlantic City in the first place. None of these planned projects ever happened.ĭonald Trump likes to brag that he made a lot of money in Atlantic City and got out before things went sour. He wanted to build the world’s largest yacht and park it next to his marina casino. He had three successive plans for a theme park on Steel Pier: First a Six Flags, then a Disney theme park, then a collaboration with Sega. He opened casinos that looked like gaudy Epcot pavilions and called them the finest buildings ever made. Donald Trump helped make Atlantic City the capital of boxing in the 1980s - Mike Tyson made 4 of his 7 undisputed title defenses here - and Trump hung out with Don King (and Jesse Jackson!) at the fights. But this is what Donald Trump’s Atlantic City was: gilded and schlocky. Professional wrestling is a great American art form, but it isn’t exactly high-brow. “Thank God Donald Trump’s a Hulkamaniac,” then-hero Hulk Hogan said in a truly bizarre promo. Trump cavorted with the heel DiBiasi in 1989, but the year before he was a full-fledged good guy. Trump Plaza was the title host for WrestleMania IV as well as V, each installment of the sport’s annual pay-per-view extravaganza was held next door at what’s now called Boardwalk Hall. This was actually the second time Donald Trump attended a WrestleMania. ![]() He hasn’t shoved $100 bills down anyone’s throat (that we know of), but Trump’s presidential speeches often sound a lot like classic bad guy wrestling promos. It’s a fitting pair, actually, as Trump shares many of the DiBiase character’s traits. Before the match, the Million Dollar Man greets America’s billion dollar man: Donald Trump. This being WrestleMania, there’s a very wealthy celebrity in the front row. He shoves $100 bills down the throats of defeated opponents and just over a year ago he actually bought the WWF championship after cheating Hogan out of the belt when that was nullified, he created his own “Million Dollar Belt” with diamond-encrusted dollar signs on the front. DiBiase is an ostentatious character who flouts his wealth. Right now Ted DiBiase, aka “The Million Dollar Man,” is about to wrestle Brutus Beefcake in an early undercard matchup. After a year of buildup, Hulk Hogan will attempt to win back the World Wrestling Federation championship from his former friend and tag-team partner, “Macho Man” Randy Savage.īut that’ll be in a few hours. The setting: WrestleMania V, the fifth in a series of professional wrestling super-shows. Though it’s early spring, the boardwalk is packed outside Trump Plaza and the convention hall next door. It’s an April Sunday in Atlantic City in 1989. Trump Plaza in its last month of operation.
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