Monday, August 04, 2008

Jesse Ventura On Vince McMahon



Last week former Wrestler, Navy SEAL and Governor of Minnesota did The Howard Stern Show on Sirius. They talked of many things including his friendship with fellow bodybuilder-turned-politico Arnold Schwarzenegger, now Governor of California, who attended Ventura's swearing in as Governor of Minnesota (and probably gave him ideas). One of the interesting points was how gravelly-voiced billionaire Vince McMahon takes advantage of his wrestlers. McMahon unified all the old "territories," which were controlled by a group of families, into the WWE -- formerly the WWF. Nowadays he has some marginal competition from southern independent organizations on Pay-per-view, but he essentially runs a monopoly. From Marksfriggin:

"... . Jesse said that he did an episode of the TV show Hunter one time. He got a check for that show and Vince McMahon took 50 percent of that. He said that's when he split from Vince and started doing stuff on his own. He said that Vince was like that with a lot of wrestlers."


And:

"Howard asked Jesse if he and Arnold Schwarzenegger are still friendly. Jesse said that they haven't spoken since he became governor of California. Jesse said that they were pretty close when they worked together in the movies. Jesse said that they he had some fun working with Arnold in Predator. He said that he's made more money in royalties than he got paid initially. He also said that he had to leave wrestling for 10 weeks to shoot it. He said that he was also the first wrestler to come in with an agent ... Jesse said that he got the part on the movie pretty easy and then had to make the call to Vince to let him know that he had to be out for 10 weeks. Jesse said that he tried calling Vince but Vince didn't want to talk to him because he didn't have time for his personal life. That led to Jesse telling the guy to let Vince know that he was quitting to go work on this new movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jesse said that Vince called him back 5 minutes later and asked about the movie and what was going on there. He said that Vince wanted him to use his agent but Jesse knew that the guy was going to be working for Vince and not for him. Jesse said that Vince told him that he couldn't go do the movie because he needed him there. Jesse told him that he was going to quit if that was the case. He said that Vince is a great business man but he's ruthless and everything is focused on business and not on people."

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