The following highlights were sent to us from the interview that Chris Van Vliet did with Jesse Ventura on Insight With Chris Van Vliet:
On his relationship with WWE:
“My relationship with them now has much improved. We are on the verge right now. I can say this, contracts have been written, contracts have been agreed upon. And all it requires is two signatures, one from them, and one from me. And I will be back with the legends.”
Do you have a timeframe?
“Fairly quickly, because time is money.”
On Vince McMahon’s absence being the main reason for the change:
“Yeah, very much so. I think that since they merged with the Ultimate Fighting [UFC] and they’re under that one roof now, they’re very much more mainstream corporate that you can deal with better because they’re more open. It isn’t having to tie into the old days of wrestling, for lack of a better term, slavery. Because, you know, in the old days of wrestling, you truly were slaves. I don’t know, I got a great compliment I heard the other day. Barry Bloom, my former agent, the one I introduced to Vince, I was the first wrestler that made Vince deal with an agent. And I heard Barry was on a podcast and said that all these contracts these guys are getting today, they owe Jesse Ventura a thank you. Because if it weren’t for him, they wouldn’t be getting them.”
On if he could do commentary today:
“I don’t think I could. I don’t think I could today because I don’t like the stuff. You know what else I don’t like today? There ain’t no Mean Gene. What do you have today? Oh, they both come walking down these ramps, they stand in the ring and yell and scream at each other and then start cutting meat and beat the sh*t out of each other. It’s so predictable. They are turning wrestlers into actors, they are giving them scenes with lines. I never had a line, not even from Verne Gagne. Nobody knows me better than me, and no one can write for me, simple.”
On the angle that was too big for Vince McMahon:
“I came to Vince McMahon. I’ll reveal this to you. I flew out to Connecticut. I sat in Vince’s office with him and Linda, and I proposed the biggest angle the WWF/WWE could have ever done, and it was too big for Vince. Vince told me that he would back me on anything political that I wanted to do. So I went out to him and I said, ‘Vince, we can do an angle right now. You can come out with the WWE and say we’re going to have our own nominee for President, the WWE party, the World Wrestling Party.’ Meanwhile, Vince has people in every state, he can send those people, get ballot access, and do what’s required to get on the ballot in all 50 states. He could do that for me. I said, ‘Then you work the angle Vince where everybody thinks it’s going to be you. You’re going to be the nominee. But we do something where I come in and say bullsh*t, I’m a Governor. I’m the natural WWE candidate for president.’ Then you do a schmoz where Vince and I get two wrestlers to represent us. Whoever wins gets the nomination. My guy beats Vince’s guy. I then become the nominee of the World Wrestling Federation for President and I have ballot access in all 50 states because Vince could have done it.”
“Well, here’s the part that pissed me off and where Vince and I big time separated. I flew home. He didn’t even bother to call me to turn me down. I thought that was the most disrespectful thing. First and foremost, when I flew out there, he made me wait an hour. I’m the former Governor. I’m out of office now. Then I shoot him this angle. If he just called me and said, ‘Jesse, it’s too crazy. It’s too hokey. I don’t think we can do it.’ I would have said fine, I gave it a try. But he didn’t even call me back. That was so disrespectful to me as Governor Jesse Ventura, as Jesse Ventura the man and as Jesse Ventura who made Vince a ton of money.”
