Jesse Ventura
speaker
493 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 25 Mar
Jesse Ventura’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Well, when I got inducted into the Hall of Fame... They asked me what I felt my biggest contribution was to pro wrestling. And I think I shocked everyone. And I know I irritated Vince and Linda. But I said, I believe my biggest contribution to wrestling was the fact that I was the first wrestler in history who made Vince McMahon deal with a manager or an agent. Is that true? Yes. Hogan never did.
Hogan dealt with Vince. It's him and Vince. Hogan had a Hollywood agent. I was the first one. And that resulted because of Predator. Right. Which he didn't want you to do. He told me I couldn't do it. So I quit. And I went and did Predator. And while I was doing Predator, Arnold said, In September, I'm going to do the running man. There's a part you're perfect for. Would you like to do it?
And I said, hell yeah. And so I negotiated running man first. Then I went back to Vince. And you know why that was? That gives you FU money in your pocket. Right. Where if he doesn't do what I'm satisfied with, I tell him flake off. I'm doing the running man in the fall. I'm okay. I got another major movie with Arnold that's going to come up in the fall.
That ain't what it's about with him. With people like him and power people with money like that, it's control. It ain't got nothing to do with doing deals and doing the right thing and promoting the correct way. It's all about control. I was the horse that got out of the corral. I wouldn't let him market me. That's the final straw. I was going to do my own video game.
And Vince said, you can't do it. I said, I own my rights. I'm registered with the government. Jesse, the body Ventura, I own the copyright with the government. How can you tell me I can't do it? And that was the final straw. That's when he fired me. And then I think he, because I never did get the video game. So I think some hanky-pank went on there, too. Oh, no. I don't know. I have no evidence.
I never signed the contract.
Well, I sued them over videotape royalties. And not that he had to pay me, but all the time that I was working for Vince, I would ask him, Vince, how come everything I do in Hollywood, when they replay it, I get royalties and everything I do for you, I get nothing. I said, how does that work? It was just he and I. I'd be there with him alone. I'd say, tell me how that works.
How come I get royalties in Hollywood and I don't with you? And he'd give me these phony excuses of why. So what I did, every time I or at that time, my agent was Barry Bloom. Every time I or Barry would negotiate with the WWF, we would bring up videotape royalties. And every time we were told the same thing, I don't pay videotape royalties. Well, we won in court on what's called quantum merit.
And with that, Vince didn't have to pay royalties. There's no law that says he does. Yeah. But here's how I beat him. When you sit down to negotiate, you expect the other side to be telling you the truth. We were constantly lied to by being told he didn't pay royalties. Well, when we sued and got into discovery, we found out Hulk Hogan was getting royalties. Mr. T was getting royalties.
Cindy Lauper was getting royalties. Hollywood, we're all getting royalties. It was us wrestlers who weren't. Well, he lied during those negotiations and said, I don't pay royalties. That's called quantum merit. That's where he broke the law. He has to tell the truth during negotiations. You expect that. He can't lie. And the truth was, yes, he paid royalties.
And when I got on the stand, my attorney asked me, Jesse Ventura, had you known other people were receiving royalties, would you have agreed to work for what you did? I said, absolutely not. I said, if I found out other people were getting royalties, I would have demanded them too.
And the jury found for me... Fitz didn't probably like that, I'm guessing. Oh, he hated it. He took it all the way to the Supreme Court for cripes sake. Wow. And then he calls me on the phone and screams into my ear when it's all over, that's my money. And I very calmly said to him, Vince, I said... The jury said it was my money. The federal judge said it was my money.
The United States Court of Appeals said it was my money. And the Supreme Court says it's my money. I said, Vince, I think you're a minority opinion. And that's that.
Well, I'll tell you this. Vince was successful because as bad as he was, all the other promoters were worse. No, I'm serious. No, I believe you. I'm laughing because you're right. Vince was like the savior. Yeah. I knew when I went to Vince that final time, I was going to quit the business. This was it. I'm going to do this last hurrah with Vince. If it fails, I'm done.
If it succeeds, we'll take it to wherever it goes. And fortunately, we succeeded. I was in pretty much, I knew I was going to do it well before I did it because there's another story behind that, but I won't go into it today. But it's a long one. But Vince actually did me a great favor. Along the way. And that's why I had loyalty to him. Okay. And I'll just leave it at that.
Uh, early eighties to mid eighties when the jump happened. Right. Well, I'll tell you the final straw of why I jumped from the AWA to Vince. Want to hear that?
I was with Saito then, Mr. Torture. Yeah. And we were, of course, the Far East-West connection. And me and Torch were wrestling tag team then in the AWA, and Vince was just starting to make his big move. And they ran lacrosse Wisconsin. And we went down there and we did an angle for a cage match, right? Yeah. And so three weeks later, we got the payoff. It was okay.
Three weeks later, we came back to lacrosse, me and Saito, for the cage match. And Vern and Greg were on their yearly Aspen vacation. The Ganesh. Yeah. Where they go up to Aspen and ski and have fun. That's what they were doing then when we had the rematch in lacrosse and it was in the cage and the house jumped, I think, $20,000 to $25,000 in business. And I got my paycheck and I got less money.
And this was at a time when Hogan had just jumped. And the house went up, and I got paid less. And Ganyas were on their vacation. Well, I knew who was paying for the vacation. We were. And so I came up to Wally Carbo, and I said, Wally, what the hell is this? I said, the house jumps $25,000, and I get less money? I said, well, the next time, I hope nobody's there. I'll get more money.
I said, what kind of bullshit is this?
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