Jesse Ventura Rips on WWE and McMahon

Posted by Marc Middleton on Monday, November 30th, 2009

- Thanks to PWTorch.com for the following recap:

Last week’s WWE RAW guest host Jesse Ventura appeared on ESPN2’s “First Take” show this morning to promote his new conspiracy theory show on truTV. There was a brief mention of Ventura being a “pretty good” pro wrestler, but no mention of him guest-hosting RAW last week. The interview mainly focused on Ventura being a modern-day version of the fictional Forrest Gump character due to Ventura’s involvement in numerous endeavors – military service, mayor and governor, pro wrestler, sports commentator, sky-diver, etc.

Ventura quipped during the interview that he gets bored easily, which is why he entered politics “because you’re only elected to a four-year shot.” Ventura also talked Minnesota sports, including Brett Favre’s NFL MVP campaign, and sold his new reality show debuting on Wednesday with a brief story that he was able to go deep into the U.S. government’s 9/11 report to uncover new information. In a typically innocuous ESPN interview with celebrities, Ventura said he was “frightened” by some of the information he learned and the interviewer, Jay Crawford, casually laughed off the sales pitch for the TV show and moved along to the next segment.

On ESPN Radio, Ventura said that pro wrestling, specifically WWE, is “a joke” and “still in the stone age” due to pro wrestlers not having any form of organized union protection. Ventura specifically focused on WWE classifying their wrestlers as independent contractors during an interview on Colin Cowherd’s ESPN Radio show today promoting his new conspiracy theory show on truTV. “How can you be an independent contractor when you’re told when to wrestle, who to wrestle, and you can’t wrestle for another promotion?” Ventura said. He added that he believes WWE CEO Vince McMahon classifies wrestlers this way to avoid paying social security.

Ventura briefly acknowledged guest-hosting RAW last week and self-deprecatingly criticized himself for calling out WWE less than a week later. “You see what a jerk I am, I just did his show and here I am causing him problems,” he said. Ventura also briefly talked about suing Vince McMahon for royalty payments when his voice or likeness is used on WWE home videos. Ventura said “the business would be different today” if other wrestlers would have joined him during the lawsuit in the early 1990s that allowed him to earn royalty payments from WWE.


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Comment

8 Responses to Jesse Ventura Rips on WWE and McMahon:

  1. Mark

    Date: Nov 30, 2009 at 8:34 PM

    I suppose Jesse didnt mention the fat paycheck from WWE he got for being guest host.

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  2. Jason

    Date: Nov 30, 2009 at 9:34 PM

    Ventura is right in what he says (most of the time) but he’s one hell of a hypocrite.

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  3. seanwdragon

    Date: Nov 30, 2009 at 9:52 PM

    Jason, in all fairness, he did out himself as a hypocrite. Just sayin

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  4. Sam_Tha_Great

    Date: Nov 30, 2009 at 10:55 PM

    This guy belongs in politics

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  5. DK Monster

    Date: Dec 01, 2009 at 2:51 AM

    Yeah, no wonder why the guy is in the politics.

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  6. Will

    Date: Dec 01, 2009 at 3:26 AM

    Ventura, there is still respected wrestling, just not in the USA. Japan and Mexico is where the most respected wrestling is going on, no lame comedy skits, not holding back wrestlers due to not being in cliche that has ties to the company’s top head honchos, no stupid nonsense storylines, and in Japan and Mexico, there’s still passion in this sport from both the wrestlers and the fans. and the wrestler over there are more riskier than US wrestling, Mexico has high flying, and japan has stiff hard fighting. so Jesse Ventura, go to Japan and Mexico and say those same words after seeing a event from NJPW or AAA or CMLL or Pro Wrestling NOAH or Dragon-Gate.

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  7. mark

    Date: Dec 01, 2009 at 12:15 PM

    how ungrateful can one person be vince should sue him for slandering his name btw not the biggest fan of wwe at the minute prefer tna even the women in tna get the chance to show off their wrestling abilty not like in wwe its all bout bikinis n crap like that on another note undertaker rulz n aj styles is truely phenomanal

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  8. Ezko

    Date: Dec 02, 2009 at 6:00 PM

    That is so damn true and Ventura is so awesome for finally bringing this stuff out. Thank you Ventura and keep it coming. I am with you. In my opionion they are not independent, They are money puppets for Vince McMahon. “Go get the bone boy, sit, stay, good boy” They are like batteries to Vince McMahon, and what do you do when you used up a battery. Throw them away.

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