Dr. Anthony Fauci nearly appeared on The Bump during the pandemic, according to Matt Camp.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic turned the wrestling world upside down. Fans were unable to attend shows, so WWE held tapings in empty arenas before they pivoted to the ThunderDome. Throughout the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci was often in the news, as he served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and he was also the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022
Speaking on The Wrestling Matt, former host of The Bump Matt Camp revealed that WWE had talks with The White House about having Anthony Fauci appear on the show during the pandemic. He first looked back on the beginning of the pandemic era and noted that they were having various celebrities appear on The Bump.
“As the months go by…Dr. Anthony Fauci was in the news a lot, and they’re trying to get the word out about the vaccine and whatever and okay, and he was making appearances everywhere and on television. It comes out, I found this out, I don’t think I knew as it was happening, or maybe I knew right at the end. I’ve said this before, The Bump didn’t get a lot of love within the company, but sometimes it was used in certain ways. The Bump could make money for the company with sponsorships and things like that. You go back and watch some of those pandemic episodes, we had the most random people on that aren’t wrestling people. We had the Property Brothers on, we had some YouTuber from Mexico, we had Ken Jeong, we had Joel McHale, we had Keegan Michael Key, we had Randy Jackson, you name it. We had all these random people on, and they drew…not that well. There was that wrestling bubble that, I don’t think people cared about celebrities. It’s why I thought the Raw guest hosts never did that well unless they were in," Camp said.
Camp went on to note that interviews with celebrities would be fun if they were into wrestling. However, this potential interview with Dr. Fauci would not be like that. He detailed how there were conversations with The White House about having Dr. Fauci appear on The Bump.
"If they were into it, it was a fun interview. But this was not about that. So conversations actually started and took place with the White House, the White House, the President. There were conversations happening with the White House about, this is a big global entity and there’s another way to get the word out about Dr. Fauci, who became the main character of COVID and the pandemic, coming on…that guy was going to appear on WWE programming to get the word out about getting the vaccine or vaccine awareness and all that. So actual communication did take place with the White House, and it was determined that this appearance, I think [it] was discussed in a few different ways, would happen on The Bump. Somehow, that was the medium, and if you think about it, what else would it have been? Some kind of pre-tape they ran during Raw and SmackDown? Maybe, but this was the only live talk show to do it on, so okay. It probably would have been pre-taped, we taped a lot of stuff during the pandemic. But the idea was, here’s the right forum. Do it on The Bump. There were conversations, and I will tell you, I guess from a digital regime, it’s like one and a half regimes ago, and there was a trust in our show, and I will say a trust specifically in me and Kayla [Braxton] to handle that. So part of the discussion was to involve top talent. Drew [McIntyre], the other name floated about, I’m not gonna speculate on anything, but Sasha Banks was the other name. It was supposed to be them, and it was going to happen. I’m 99% sure that Stephanie McMahon was on board with this. She was, as far as I know, on board with this idea. So it got pretty far down the line, and it had one more stop, Vince. Now, initially, I was told that Vince was okay with it. You gotta remember, not that everything went through Vince, but a lot did. This was a big deal, it was a big thing for the company, so he would have to sign off on this," Camp said.
Camp then stated that, initially, he was told that Vince McMahon was on board with the idea, and the details were figured out. He reiterated that Drew McIntyre and possibly Sasha Banks were supposed to be involved in what would have been a roundtable discussion, but in the end, McMahon did not sign off on it.
"Initially, I was told he was on board, and when it came down to, ‘Hey, this is gonna happen, the details have all been figured out,’ I don’t know if in the end it was gonna be Drew and Sasha. I think Drew was gonna be involved. It was just gonna be, I think the idea was a round table discussion of the pandemic and living in it and being entertainers in it, getting the word out about the vaccine, all that. But Vince had to give the final [thumbs up], and he did this [thumbs down]. As you may expect, considered too political. It was one of the few times he got directly involved with the show, that I know of. Vince said no, and it didn’t happen. That was the end of it. I think the intent was good. I don’t know how it would have been received. I think it would have been a big deal for the company to do it. But that was considered political. ‘We think this is political, so we’re not gonna do it.’ So Anthony Fauci did join the esteemed guest list of Bump guests because Vince said, ‘Nah, not gonna happen," Camp said.
Camp said that he was not sure how the interview would have been received. He pointed out that Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and other political figures had appeared in taped segments on WWE programming, but the company had gotten away from doing anything political. Later in the video, Camp said he thought the Fauci discussions may have been in early 2021.
During the video, Camp also discussed his WWE release. Check out his comments here.
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