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William Donald Schaefer was a legendary figure in Maryland politics. He was also a big fan of wrestling - especially Hulk Hogan. The screenshot above is of Todd Pettengill of WWF interviewing Gov. Schaefer at King of the Ring at The Baltimore Arena in 1994.

Pettengill asked Schaefer to name his favorite wrestler and Schaefer responded, “I’ve always been a big Hulk Hogan fan.”

Hogan had just signed with rival promotion WCW at the time, so the interview was quickly ended. Jerry Lawler, who was wrestling in the main event that day, referred to Schaefer as “Governor Budweiser” later in the broadcast.

The Schaefer interview was not included on the VHS home video of the event sold later and it was not included on the archived version at the WWE Network (nor at Peacock now).

Here’s the video of the interview:

Kevin Eck wrote an article for The Baltimore Sun about Schaefer’s love of wrestling after the former governor’s death in 2011. He also referenced the events at King of the Ring as well as a WWF event in 1989 that was covered by The Baltimore Evening Sun.

Eck wrote about that 1989 article, which had pictures of Schaefer sitting in the front row of the event. In that article, Schaefer was quoted as saying, “Hulk Hogan is my hero. He's great."

Eck also notes that Schaefer met Hogan at Wrestlemania V in Atlantic City as a guest of Donald Trump a few months before the Baltimore show covered in the article.

Here’s the 1989 article: