Jesse Ventura details what led to WWE return: ‘I did it selfishly for my kids’
Jesse Ventura recently spoke with the New York Post about what led to his WWE return.
Ventura will be on the commentary team for tonight’s WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event, a deal that his son Tyrel, who works as his agent, brokered.
“He’s very qualified for it. He used to be Sean Penn’s assistant, so he has experience,” Ventura said of his son.
“My son was a fan of wrestling and a fan of myself growing up, so he took it upon himself to make some contact with the new ownership and they started talking.”
“One thing led to another, and I realized they were under new ownership and I wasn’t going to be held to the old standard of why I got kicked out before. Lo and behold it happened. I’ll tell you this: I did it selfishly for my kids. I’m 73 now. I ain’t gonna be around forever. I want to position it where if anybody makes money off my name, I want my kids to have a piece of it.”
Ventura was announced as having signed a WWE Legends deal last October. He says it wasn’t difficult to come back for Saturday Night’s Main Event as well, as the ice had already been broken between himself and the company.
“With Saturday Night’s Main Event coming back after 40 years, somebody said, ‘We need Jesse for this,’” Ventura said. “Because we had already negotiated the Legends deal, it wasn’t a big deal to negotiate this. The ice had been broken and now hell has frozen over.”
Ventura’s in-ring career ended in 1984 due to blood clots in his lungs. After that, he joined the WWE commentary team until a dispute with Vince McMahon in August 1990 led to his departure from the company. During his time in the role, Ventura was voted Best Color Commentator in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards for four straight years from 1987 to 1990.
He joined the WCW commentary team in 1992 but left in 1994, shortly after Hulk Hogan joined the company. After serving as Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2004.