Wrestling queen goes after Dodd Senate seat

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The CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment wants to body-slam Democratic Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd -- by whipping him in the Senate race next year.

Linda McMahon, 60, threw her folding chair into the ring yesterday as she stepped down from her post at the Greenwich-based company and opened up a no-holds-barred campaign for the Republican nomination.

"She thinks, in a nutshell, that Washington has really lost its way," her campaign manager, Ed Patru, said yesterday.

Dodd better consider saving a little of his campaign war chest for the purchase of a cup: McMahon has been known to step into the ring during WWE events and serve up kicks to the groin during broadcast wrestling events.

But Dodd's not scared. When asked for the senator's height and fighting weight, Connecticut Democratic Party spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan said, "Let's just say this: You wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley."

McMahon, meanwhile, is so mad at the way things are going in DC that she wants to put government spending in a figure-four leg lock.

"The spending is at unacceptable limits now," Patru said. "The debt is at a limit that, a few years back, would have been unthinkable."

McMahon has long been seen as the brains behind the WWE's massive success.

She and her husband, Vince, started the company in the late 1970s, and grew it into one of the most famous entertainment enterprises in the world. While he is the showman and the face of the company, she has gotten much of the credit for the big deals that have made WWE a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

She was once even compared to Margaret Thatcher by former wrestler Bret "The Hit Man" Hart.

She will surely be dogged by talk about the antics of the WWE, which, until a recent shift toward more family-friendly fare, has been associated with violence, steroid use and raunchy behavior.

Linda McMahon would sometimes engage in the WWE's outlandish onscreen antics.

In one plot line, she was put into a coma by her husband, and then kicked him in his "family jewels" after she recovered. In another, her daughter, Stephanie, slapped her and knocked her to the mat.

In another clip circulating online, she could be seen delivering a blow to the groin of a man in the ring. In yet another, she gets body-slammed herself.

"There's quite a bit of video archival material for her Republican opponents to use against her," the Web site Politico.com said yesterday.

Before facing Dodd, McMahon will have to deliver electoral suplexes to three other GOP contenders: former US Rep. Rob Simmons; state Sen. Sam Caligiuri; and former US Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley.

For his part, Dodd said yesterday that he was ready for a 2010 cage match for his seat.

"We welcome Linda McMahon to what looks to be a spirited and entertaining contest among Republicans for the nomination," the Connecticut Democratic Party said in a statement.