Ventura thinks Vince McMahon being out of the picture was the key factor.
The July 29th episode of Monday Night Raw emanated from Saint Paul, Minnesota and prior to the show, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque posted a video of him greeting Minnesota’s own Jesse Ventura.
The former Minnesota governor made his return to the company and his visit was brought up during the Raw broadcast. Ventura sat down with Chris Van Vliet for an interview and shared that contracts have been agreed upon between himself and WWE. He added that all that’s needed are signatures from both sides.
My relationship with them (WWE) now has much improved. We are on the verge right now — I can say this — that 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… Fairly quickly, fairly quickly (is my timeframe on wanting to get it done) because time is money.
Following up on that, Ventura was asked if Vince McMahon being out of the picture was the main factor in his reunion with WWE coming to fruition and here’s what he had to say:
Yeah, yeah, yeah (what changed is Vince McMahon is not at WWE anymore). Very much so. I think that they’re very much more — since they merged with the Ultimate Fighting (Championship) 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 better term, slavery. Because, you know, in the old days of wrestling, you truly were slaves, and 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.
The latest on Vince McMahon came from John Pollock and Brandon Thurston. They received a statement from McMahon’s attorney to address McMahon’s health status.
For the latest on Janel Grant’s sex trafficking lawsuit against McMahon, John Laurinaitis and WWE, click here.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
