Ventura added that Verne Gagne came through for him in a major way during the trial.
The lawsuit that Jesse Ventura filed against WWF in the 1990s is well-documented and the basis of it had to do with royalties.
Ventura further opened up about it during a recording of his podcast, The Body Shop. He shared that in court, ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage versus Ricky Steamboat from WrestleMania III was shown to the jury twice.
The first play was to show how much announcers matter to the presentation of wrestling after WWF attempted to downplay Ventura’s role as an announcer. The no-commentary version of the match was shown as well and Ventura claims that some jury members were dozing off during that rendition.
He went on to add that Verne Gagne came through for him in a major way during the trial and Gagne only did that because he hated Vince McMahon more than he hated Ventura.
You know what getting Jesse’d is don’t ya? Oh, they call that now if you’re gonna sue the WWE, you’re gonna Jesse ‘em (he laughed). That’s the slang term now… I gotta tell you the story. During my trial with the WWF then, over videotape royalties and all of that, they tried to poo-poo my importance. They said that announcers didn’t mean sh*t. Do you know what we did in court? You’re gonna love hearing this story. In court, in front of the jury, we played them WrestleMania III, ‘Macho Man’ against (Ricky) Steamboat. First, we played it for the jury with (Gorilla) Monsoon and I broadcasting it. Then we played it to the jury with nobody talking. A silent film. You should have seen — the greatest match in history, halfway through it, the jury’s falling asleep. They’re all wandering and looking at stuff throughout the courtroom. They’re not even paying attention anymore because WWF tried to say that broadcasting didn’t mean nothing, and so we played them the greatest match with broadcasting and without out it and we let the jury decide how important the broadcasting was and guess who came through as a shining star for me in that trial? You’ll never believe. Verne Gagne… Verne Gagne agreed to testify. His quote to my attorney was this… he said, ‘I hate Vince a lot more than Jesse so yeah, I’ll testify.’ So, the whole thing was based on who he hated most and he hated Vince (McMahon) worse than he hated me. So, he testified. But he was brilliant. You know what he got up and said in front of the jury? Now this is regular people. Verne Gagne got up there and told that jury, he said, ‘Jesse Ventura is to pro wrestling what John Madden is to Monday Night Football.’ I could have kissed him. I mean, for Verne to say that — that’s what he told the jury and you’re telling me that didn’t resonate?… Well (he hated me), but he hated Vince worse. So that was the good thing. He hated Vince worse. But no, it was an interesting trial to say the least, you know, back then.
Ventura is back under the WWE umbrella and he signed a Legends contract with the company. He’s been a part of the last two Saturday Night’s Main Event shows and to read his comments about how that agreement came to be, head over to this link.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit The Body Shop with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
