This week we got a big new Twitter beef between Texas Senator Ted Cruz and actor Ron Perlman. You’d expect the two to beef, I suppose — the staunchly conservative Texas politician will always beef with the progressive Hollywood star, given the opportunity.
What’s interesting about this beef is how we got there. This wasn’t your standard Culture Skirmish — we’ve got wrestling, and soccer, and anthems, and representatives from multiple states, all involved in creating this beef, which is certainly a Beef of Our Times.
Anyway, we’re here to break it all down for you. How we got here, and where we’re going next.
Who are these people now?
Ted Cruz is the Republican Senator who has represented Texas since 2013.
Ron Perlman is the actor who played Hellboy, as well as Clarence ‘Clay’ Morrow on the FX series Sons of Anarchy. The big fella.
They’re beefing?
You better believe they’re beefing.
From whence did this beef come?
Soccer. And a Florida Republican. And a former college wrestling coach.
Lol. What?
So it all started from a tweet from Matt Gaetz, a Republican congressman who serves Florida’s First District. He was calling out U.S. Soccer of all things, for the federation’s decision to retract a rule that forced its players to stand for the national anthem.
This was Gaetz’s tweet:
I’d rather the US not have a soccer team than have a soccer team that won’t stand for the National Anthem.
You shouldn’t get to play under our flag as our national team if you won’t stand when it is raised.
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) June 11, 2020
Perlman then responded, calling out Gaetz, as well as Donald Trump, in a NSFW-tweet that argued that the athletes didn’t care about what politicians think.
They got into it then with a healthy back-and-forth.
It ended with Perlman insulting Gaetz’s looks, saying he’d be the “ugliest politician walking” if not for “this guy,” and then shared a photo of Jim Jordan, the Republican who represents Ohio’s 4th.
This thing has layers, huh.
You’re telling me.
So how on Earth did Ted Cruz get involved?
Cruz jumped into the fray to defend the honor of fellow Republicans Gaetz and Jordan, and he did so by … challenging Perlman to fight Jordan, a former collegiate wrestler.
Listen Hellboy. You talk good game when you’ve got Hollywood makeup & stuntmen. But I’ll bet $10k—to the nonpolitical charity of your choice—that you couldn’t last 5 min in the wrestling ring w/ @Jim_Jordan w/o getting pinned. You up for it? Or does your publicist say too risky? https://t.co/eRerYVe5kj
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 15, 2020
He challenged Perlman to fight someone else?
Correct.
Huh. How did Perlman respond?
Perlman said that wrestling with Jordan would be “problematic,” which appeared to be a way of calling out the fact that Jordan was the assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State when there was a sexual assault scandal involving a team doctor at the school. Jordan has denied having any knowledge of the actions by the team doctor at the time.
Perlman then said to Cruz “just make it you & me. I’ll give 50k to Black Lives Matter and you can keep all the tax payer money you were thinking of spending.”
And that’s it?
There’s been a few more barbs back and forth, but that should get you caught up.
Wild.
Amen.
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