Forget Standing Up for WWE: Online Onslaught, a website for wrestling fans, says it's tired of what it believes is the incursion of politics into the world of pro wrestling.
"Our wise founding fathers believed in a seperation of Church and State. Today, OO believes in a separation of Wrestling and Politics, and thinks a lot of You, The People, agree with me. For our good (and in a way, for WWE's own good), wrestling fans should STAND DOWN against the 'Stand Up for WWE' campaign,'' the webzine states.
It has started an online petition (signed by 63 people as of 4:45 this afternoon. In contrast, Stand Up for WWE's Facebook page is "liked" by 32,794 people.)
WWE says it launched the Stand Up campaign to defend the company against inaccurate and malicious attacks in the media, and from the campaign of Democrat Richard Blumenthal, whose Republican opponent, Linda McMahon, is the former CEO of WWE.
But Online Onslaught chalks it all up to politics, which is says has no place in the wrestling ring.
"Last night, WWE put on a wrestling show,'' Online Onslaught writes on its site.
"Stuff happened. It wasn't as good as the past few weeks. And more importantly, the single most memorable thing from the show didn't have a thing to do with wrestling: a thinly disguised 5-minute campaign ad for Linda McMahon (dressed up as WWE asking fans to "stand up" for WWE, which has been "unfairly attacked" by the media). That's not just an insult to fans (who already "stand up" for you with their dollars and eyeballs, and owe you nothing else). That's borderline sleazy and illegal campaigning by implicitly giving Linda's campaign 5 minutes of TV time. This has nothing to do with Linda's decency as a person or qualities as a candidate, but also: IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WRESTLING, and for WWE's own good, I hope fans revolt and tell Linda to stick to campaign.''