Torch Talk Interview: Jesse Ventura, part one
Conducted by Wade Keller, Torch editor
Conducted January 19, 1992
Originally published in Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter #164
Original headline: "Jesse 'The Body' Ventura Interview"

Original Introduction

Jesse "The Body" Ventura, regarded as one of the most valuable announcers ever in professional wrestling, called his first complete event for WCW last week at SuperBrawl II. Ventura, formerly with the WWF as a color commentator, disappeared from the pro wrestling scene for over one year and started pro football announcing and color commentary on "Grudge Match," a syndicated action-entertainment program. HIs return to WCW is considered a boost to the image of WCW. He soon will be joining Tony Schiavone on WCW's syndicated program, "World Wide Wrestling" and regain the national exposure he had with the WWF. The following is part one of a "Torch Talk" conducted with Ventura on the airwaves of my KFAN radio show in Minneapolis/St. Paul. on Jan. 19, including some caller questions.

Wade Keller: : How did you originally get involved in pro wrestling?

Jesse Ventura: I originally got involved, of course, way back when there were roughly 26 territories. I got started with the Kansas City promotion which had Pat O'Connor and Bob Geigel and Guss Garris. I guess I'm dating myself. That was 1975. I had my first match in Wichita, Kansas against Omar Atlas.

Keller: What was it that interested you in pro wrestling?

Ventura: Well, after getting out of the service after spending four years in the military and I had hopes of playing pro football, but I figured I had to go to college first. I guess I got a little disenchanted with football. My mind probably wasn't... coming out of four years in the military, football is pretty militaristic. So, mentally, I really wasn't ready to play professional football. Then I met an ex-pro wrestling who mentioned to me, "Did you ever think of getting into pro wrestling?" Pro wrestling always appealed to me because of its individuality and creativity of it. I was able to create Jesse "The Body" Ventura.

Keller: You seem like more of an individual than wanting to be on a team?

Ventura: I was always one after four years in the service, I was tired of wearing uniforms. Football players all have to look alike, talk alike, and it's a very deep concept sport. Mentally I wanted an individual sport in my life.

Keller: You were one of the early wrestlers to break the uniform concept in wrestling. You were very outrageous with the feathers, ear rings, colored hair, and flamboyance. Would you say Superstar Graham was one of your great influences?

Ventura: Absolutely. In fact, it was Superstar Billy Graham, when I came home on leave in about 1973 and went to a match at the old Minneapolis Auditorium. That is what I saw Superstar Graham in the flesh and that is when I just looked at him and said, "I can do what he does." He was a big influence on how I conducted myself in the ring.

Keller: It didn't take long before some people said you did Billy Graham better than he did.

Ventura: There were a few people who said that. Billy might beg to differ.

Keller: He might. He might not, too. I think he's a big fan of yours, also.

Ventura: I think we mutually respect and like each other. We're still good friends today. Whenever I go out to Los Angeles, I stay a lot at Universal Studios for "Grudge Match" and Billy actually lives just a stone's throw from Universal. So I always pop over and visit Billy when I'm in L.A.

Keller: Billy is having a lot of fun right now talking about the steroid controversy in wrestling?

Ventura: I don't know if it's fun. I'm sure he'd rather talk about something else, but I guess it's something he probably needs to speak out on.

Keller: Yeah, I meant that more facetiously. How did you end up entering the AWA?

Ventura: I wrestled six months in Kansas City and then they sent me out to whom I consider one of the greatest promoters that I ever, ever worked for and I have the greatest respect for the man to this day, and that is Don Owen out in Portland Oregon. I probably had a two and a half year run out in Portland which was very successful for a young wrestler like me at the time because I had only been wrestling six months. In fact, after I had been out in Portland three months, I defeated Jimmy Snuka for the Northwest Heavyweight Championship and I had only been wrestling nine months at the time.

I then worked for Ed Francis when he opened a promotion out in Hawaii. That was terrific. You didn't make a lot of money, but there certainly worse places you could be exiled to. Hawaii was great. I was out there with Steve Strong and John Tolos and Gorilla Lawler and we used to only have to wrestle on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. So we had all the other days off every week. Our big road trip was to the army barracks about a half hour drive. Tolos and me and Strong used to pack lunch so we could pretend we were on a road trip. We had to eat the sandwiches quick. I was in Hawaii about seven or eight months and then I returned to Portland for another six or seven months. Then I returned to Minnesota, opened my weight lifting gym and I quit wrestling. It was at that point the AWA got in contact with me. Now, Don Owen had a fellow who ran off on him real quick, so was stuck in a predicament and he needed a piece of talent that could draw some people. I was always a pretty good draw in Oregon. So Don flew me out and first I did a promo tape at the AWA to send out to Don. It was at that point that Verne Gagne saw me do an interview and it was at that point that Verne decided maybe I was a talent he could use. So when I came back from my two weeks in Portland, I then was contacted by the AWA and started from there.

Keller: To get into the AWA considering you were trained by Eddie Sharkey was quite an achievement because I don't think the Gagnes and Sharkey have been timid about their ill-feelings for each other..

Ventura: In fact, Wade, word had gone out early in my career... Well, I worked almost five years before I got to the AWA and I always heard through the grapevine that I would never work for the AWA because I was trained by Ed Sharkey.

Keller: You were one of the first to break that barrier. The Gagnes ended up using quite a few wrestlers from the PWA near the end.

Ventura: I think was about the first. He might have used Bob Backlund on occasion, but then he had a thing for amateur wrestlers. Backlund had the great extensive amateur background, being a small college champ two years in a row. Because of that amateur background, Verne would overlook his hostility toward Eddie Sharkey.

Keller: How was it different working for Verne Gagne as opposed to Don Owen and the other smaller promotions you worked for?

Ventura: Well, of course, it was a major step up for my career because in that day, the late-late-70s, the three major promotions you as a young wrestler wanted to achieve success in was the AWA with Verne Gagne, the Crockett's promotion based out of Charlotte which today is basically WCW, and the WWF with Vince McMahon Sr., the eastern sea board. Those were your three money-making territories. Those were your dreams or your goals. When I worked for the AWA, it wasn't always a smooth sail. Because I think in our own way Verne Gagne and I had our own conflicting personalities. He's a yeller and a screamer. I don't like putting up with that stuff. I don't care to be yelled at or screamed at.

Keller: You mentioned to me that you were surprised by David Shults's complimentary comments toward Verne Gagne because of the way he said he was treated by Verne. That was one of the first former wrestlers that I ever heard compliment Verne Gagne. Most of the stories you hear are exactly what you said, Verne's yelling and screaming. I don't think a lot of people realize the difference between Verne Gagne the on-air personality and the Verne Gagne that dealt with wrestlers.

Ventura: I used to always say Verne treat total strangers better than those who make him his money. I was concerned with David's comments. He painted McMahon as this huge tyrant from the East with this huge corporate take-over. That's true, did all that. Let's remember one thing, people at that point, he's portraying these 26 regional promotions as being some blessing. That's what I felt David was doing, that they were all innocent lambs that big mean Vince devoured, the Christians to the lions type thing. It wasn't that way at all.

Vince McMahon could not have succeeded as he tried to do if there had not been a lot of hate and dissension with all the regional promoters throughout the country. All Vince did was, he knew that, so he was very nice to you. He gave you light at the end of the tunnel. I got to the point at the end of my career where I said to myself, "I won't wrestle again if I have to work for Verne Gagne." It was that much to me.

Keller: What was it that was so bad about Verne Gagne that it was so bad to deal with him?

Ventura: I remember one time, the late Adrian Adonis and I, the East-West Connection, we had three consecutive sell-outs in Denver, Colorado. I'll never forget this. That night something in the match Verne got unhappy with. My viewpoint would have been if I was a promoter, I would have walked up to my top talent, which Adrian and I were then and said, "Hey, guys, three sell-outs in a row. Great job guys, keep it up" and pat ya' on the back. Verne screamed at us in the shower over a trivial little thing that meant nothing in the match. You sat there and said isn't that gratitude. The guy gets three consecutive sellouts and all the money you're making for him and he didn't appreciate it at all . He rarely had a kind word for you.

Plus, he was also very brutal in the power game. I know of two incidents, a good friend of mine, Big John Studd, and another friend of mine, John Tolos, who were fired for no reason at all. John Studd had a very lucrative deal in Japan at the time where he would go to Japan three times a year and make really big money. Well, he had a six week tour coming up and Verne sat him aside and said, "John, you can't go. You're so much involved here in my promotion. Won't you stay?" He basically pleaded with John Studd to stay, so John cancelled his Japan tour and stayed. Well, one week after the Japan tour started, Verne Gagne fired him. That happened quite often then. He wasn't an easy guy to deal with. For a guy who portrays himself as mom and apple pie and the University of Minnesota on TV, if you worked for him, it was a horse of different color. And I think you'll back me up on that, Wade, with all the wrestlers you've talked to that have dealt with him

So getting back to the David Shults thing, Vince could not have done what he did had there not been some really bad promoters out there. Nick Gulas, Dick the Bruiser, and all of those people, I mean they used to cheat the wrestlers out of money and things of that nature all the time and make conditions just horrible. So Vince saw that and knew the time was right.

Keller: Was Verne Gagne at least generous with payoffs, since he wasn't with compliments?

Gagne: Verne Gagne wasn't a bad payoff man. I distinctly remember, also, when it was the nitty gritty time after Hulk Hogan and Gene Okerlund had left and there were rumblings, this and that, throughout wrestling. Me and Saito were teamed up at the time and we had a match in LaCrosse, Wisc. and it drew pretty well and we got a pretty good payoff on it. We had a cage match the next month and the house jumped $5,000 at the gate, yet when I got my payoff, I took a $100 pay cut.

Keller: Today there are guarantees and pay is based on a lot of things other than house show receipts, but in those days that was the way things worked.

Ventura: In those days, your incentive was, the more people you put in the seats, the more money you made. Generally thinking, if the house went up, payoffs went up accordingly. Saito and I were the main event and the house went up $5,000, from a $15,.000 house to a $20,000 house, yet I took a $100 paycut. I remember going to Wally Karbo because Verne and Greg went off on their ski trip and so they weren't available and told Wally, "This doesn't make any sense. Our incentive is to put people in the stands to make more money. If I put more people in the stands and make less money, I'd rather wrestle in front of no people and probably make more money. That was basically one of the last straws for me and with the Gagne promotion. Because this was a time where I felt they should have been taking care of the talent they had here to keep them from jumping to Japan, they were cutting your money and forcing you to go to Japan.

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