Ventura also made a joke about trying to get the crowds to boo him at events.
With WWE bringing back Saturday Night’s Main Event to simulcast on NBC and Peacock, Jesse Ventura has been a part of the broadcast team for the shows. He serves as an analyst alongside Joe Tessitore and then joins the commentary team for one match on the show.
He opened up about the initial offer WWE presented to him to appear at the special(s). He stated on The Body Shop that he countered their first offer which led to WWE coming back with a more ‘solid’ deal. The original plan was for Ventura to be on one show. He’ll be at the next two and is hoping to do more in the future.
Well, then the fun thing started happening. Along came Saturday Night’s Main Event and Triple H was on the plane and I guess he’s thinking, ‘God, do you think we could get Jesse back? You know, to actually do the broadcast?’ So they approach with that, and they made an initial offer, which wasn’t quite good enough and I countered them and they came back real solid and no ifs, ands, buts. It was a good negotiation… which we agreed at first only to do one. They’re doing four. But they wanted me for a whole day’s publicity. So I said, ‘Alright, if I come out a day ahead of time and I do a whole day’s publicity, it’s gotta be for more than one show.’ I said, ‘I wanna guarantee for all four then.’ Then I get all four shows. They came back and said, ‘No problem.’ You know? ‘No problem whatsoever’ and I’ll state this: That they come back for another four next year and I hope I can sign and do four more Saturday Night’s Main Events next year.
Jesse stated that when he’s at events, he tries to get the crowd to boo him. He’ll talk trash to the fans but they ignore his trash talk and express how much they like him.
He then joked that the only way for him to get booed is to come out with the American flag wrapped around him and to call himself Hulk Hogan.
I’ll tell you this: What I say in wrestling today to my day, I don’t see the villain-good guy as much today. I don’t see that. I see you are all a bunch of characters. Each wrestler’s a character and it all just depends whether the fans like this character right now or like that character. Where in my day, it was much more the lines were drawn, and I think the lines were drawn more clearly in the old days than they are so today. I mean, I’ve been going to these events trying to get booed, and I get there and there’s nothing I can do (he laughed). I’m going, ‘What in the hell is going on here?’ I was screaming at the fans the other day, ‘You think I like you people now?’ They’re all, ‘We don’t care, we don’t care.’ I’m going crazy at the events because I’m trying to get ‘em to hate me. I guess the only way to do that is to wrap myself up in the American flag and come out and call myself the Hulk and I’ll get booed off the stage.
The latest Saturday Night’s Main Event special took place in January. Ventura was on the call for the Intercontinental Championship match between Bron Breakker and Sheamus.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Body Shop with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
