James George Janos (born July 15, 1951), best
known as
Jesse Ventura, is an American
politician, retired
professional wrestler and color
commentator,
Navy UDT
veteran,
actor, and
former
radio and
television talk show
host. As a professional wrestler, he is best known for his tenure
in the
World Wrestling
Federation as a wrestler and color commentator. In 2004, he was
inducted into the company's
Hall of
Fame.
In the
Minnesota
gubernatorial election of 1998, running as an
Independent and member of
the
Reform
Party, he was elected the 38th
Governor of Minnesota and served from
January 4, 1999 to January 6, 2003 without seeking a second
term.
Early life
Ventura
was born James George Janos in Minneapolis
, the son of Bernice Martha (née Lenz) and George William
Janos. His father's parents were from what is today
Slovakia
, and his
mother had German ancestry. Ventura has described himself as
Slovak. Ventura (then still using
his legal name of Janos) attended the now-closed Cooper Elementary
School, and graduated from Minneapolis'
Roosevelt High School in
1969.
From September 11, 1969 to September 10, 1975, during the
Vietnam War era, he served in the
United States Navy. While on active duty,
Ventura was part of
Underwater Demolition Team 12.
The UDT was merged with the
Navy SEALs in 1983, after Ventura
was no longer in the Navy. He was awarded the
National Defense Service
Medal and the
Vietnam Service
Medal but was not in combat and thus did not qualify for the
Combat Action Ribbon. In his
autobiography, Ventura described SEAL
training as the toughest experience of his life. Ventura always
mentioned how much he respected his SEAL instructor
Master Chief Petty Officer Terry
"Mother" Moy. He asked Moy to stand by his side when he was sworn
in as governor of Minnesota. He ended his inaugural address with
the SEAL war cry "
HOOYAH!"
In 1973,
Ventura was a full-patch member of the San Diego
chapter of the Mongols, a one-percenter
motorcycle gang and organized
crime syndicate for nine months, and rose to the rank of
Sergeant-at-Arms. His
nickname by
Mongol members was "
Superman". Ventura has
said on
The Howard Stern
Show in 2009 that "once you're a Mongol, you're always a
Mongol."
He
returned to Minnesota
and attended North Hennepin Community
College in the mid-1970s at the same time he began weightlifting and wrestling. It was around this
time that he briefly served as a bodyguard for
The Rolling Stones.
Professional wrestling career
Early career
He created
the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a
bully-ish beach bodybuilder, picking the name "Ventura
" from a map as part of his "bleach blond from California
" character. As
a wrestler, Ventura performed as a
villain and often used the
motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!" Much of
his flamboyant persona was copied from
"Superstar" Billy Graham, a
charismatic and popular performer during the 1970s and '80s. Years
later, as a broadcaster, Ventura made a running joke out of
claiming that Graham stole all of his ring attire ideas from
him.
Singles and tag team success
In 1975, Ventura made his debut in the Central States territory,
before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he wrestled for
promoter
Don Owen as
Jesse "The Great" Ventura.
During his stay in Portland,
Oregon
, he had notable feuds with Dutch Savage and Jimmy
Snuka and won the Pacific Northwest Wrestling title twice (once
from each wrestler), and the tag team title five times (twice each
with Bull Ramos and "Playboy" Buddy Rose, and once with and Jerry
Oates). He later moved to his hometown promotion, the
American Wrestling
Association in Minnesota, and began teaming with
Adrian Adonis as the "East-West Connection" in
1979.
The
duo won the promotion's World Tag Team Championship
on July 20, 1980 on a forfeit when Verne
Gagne, one-half of the tag team champions along with Mad Dog Vachon, failed to show up for a title
defense in Denver
, Colorado
. The
duo held the belts for nearly a year, losing to "The High Flyers"
(
Greg Gagne and
Jim Brunzell).
Retirement and commentary
Shortly after losing the belts, the duo moved on to the
World Wrestling Federation,
where they were managed by
"Classy"
Freddie Blassie. Ventura would then adopt his infamous nickname
"The Body", and although the duo was unable to capture the
World Tag Team
Championship, both Adonis and Ventura became singles title
contenders, each earning several title shots at
World Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund.
Ventura continued to wrestle until September 1984, when blood clots
in his lungs ended his in-ring career; it forced him to miss a
title match against WWF Champion
Hulk
Hogan. Ventura claimed the blood clots were a result of his
exposure to
Agent Orange during his
time in Vietnam. After a failed comeback bid, he began to do
color commentary on
television for
All-Star Wrestling (replacing
Angelo Mosca) and later
Superstars of Wrestling
(initially alongside
Vince McMahon and
Bruno Sammartino, and with McMahon
after Sammartino's departure from the WWF in 1988), hosted his own
talk segment on the WWF's
Superstars of Wrestling called
"The Body Shop", and did color commentary on radio for a few
National Football League
teams (among them, the
Minnesota
Vikings and
Tampa Bay
Buccaneers). Ventura most notably co-hosted
Saturday Night's Main Event
with Vince McMahon and the first six
WrestleManias (1985-1990) and most of the WWF's
pay-per-views at the time with
Gorilla
Monsoon (the lone exception for Ventura being the
first SummerSlam, in which Ventura served
as the guest referee during the main event). Ventura did return to
the ring to participate in a six-man tag team match in December
1985 as he,
Roddy Piper, and "Cowboy"
Bob Orton defeated
Hillbilly Jim,
Uncle
Elmer, and
Cousin Luke in a match
which was broadcast on
Saturday Night's Main Event.
Following a dispute with WWF Chairman Vince McMahon over him using
his image for the video game company
Sega,
McMahon—who had a contract with rival company
Nintendo at the time—released Ventura from the
company in August 1990.
In February 1992 at
WCW
SuperBrawl II, Ventura
joined
World Championship
Wrestling as a commentator. His professional wrestling
commentary style was an extension of his wrestling persona, as he
was partial to the villains, which was something new and different
at the time, but would still occasionally give credit where it was
due, praising the athleticism of
Dynamite
Kid and
Randy Savage (who was
championed by Ventura for years, even when he was a
fan favorite). Ventura would
leave The lone exception to this rule was the
WrestleMania VI match between Hulk Hogan and
the
Ultimate Warrior. Since they
were both crowd favorites, Ventura took a neutral position in his
commentary; even praising Hogan's display of sportsmanship at the
end of the match when he handed over the WWF Championship to the
Warrior after he lost the title. The praise of Hogan's action was
unusual for Ventura because he regularly rooted against Hogan
during his matches. Hogan and Ventura were, at one point, close
friends. Ventura, however, abruptly ended the friendship after he
discovered, during his lawsuit against Vince McMahon, that Hogan
was the one who had told Vince about Ventura's attempt to form a
labor union in 1984. Ventura was released by WCW President
Eric Bishoff for falling asleeep during a WCW
Worldwide TV at Disney MGM Studios in 1994.
Litigation
In 1987, while negotiating his contract as a
WWF commentator, Ventura
waived his rights to royalties on videotape sales when he was
falsely told that only feature performers received such royalties.
In 1991,
having discovered that other non-feature performers received
royalties, Ventura brought an action for
fraud, misappropriation of publicity rights, and unjust enrichment in Minnesota state court against
Titan Sports. The case was removed to
federal court, and Ventura won
an $801,333
jury verdict
on the last claim. The judgment was affirmed on
appeal, and the case, 65 F.3d 725 (8th Cir.1995), is
an important result in the law of
restitution.
As a result of Ventura's
lawsuit, whenever
WWE uses his commentary for mass marketed
VHS/
DVD, Ventura gets a percentage of
the sales.
Return to the World Wrestling Federation / Entertainment
In mid-1999, Ventura reappeared on WWF television during his term
as Governor of Minnesota, acting as the special guest referee for
main event of
SummerSlam held in
Minneapolis. Ventura would continue his relaton with the WWF by
performing commentary for Vince McMahon's short-lived
XFL. On the March 20, 2003 episode of
SmackDown!, Ventura appeared in a
taped
interview to talk about the match between McMahon and
Hulk Hogan at
WrestleMania XIX. Less than a year later,
he would be inducted into the
WWE Hall
of Fame on March 13, 2004 and the following night at
WrestleMania XX, he approached the ring to
interview
Donald Trump, who had a front
row seat at the event. Trump affirmed that Ventura would receive
his moral and financial support were he to ever reenter the world
of politics.
Alluding to the 2008 election,
Ventura boldly announced that "In 2008, maybe we oughta put a
wrestler in the White
House
". On the June 11, 2007 episode of
Raw, Ventura appeared to give
comments about Vince McMahon.
Ventura was guest host on the November 23, 2009 episode of
Raw during which he retained his
villainous persona by siding
with the number one contender,
Sheamus over WWE Champion
John Cena. This happened while he confronted Cena
about how it was unfair that Cena always got a title shot in the
WWE while Ventura didn't during his WWE career. After that Sheamus
attacked Cena and put him through a table. Ventura then made the
match a Tables match at
TLC: Tables, Ladders &
Chairs. During the show, for the first time in nearly 20 years,
Vince McMahon joined Ventura at ringside to provide match
commentary together.
Acting career
Ventura
acted in the 1987 movie Predator, whose cast included future
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future
Kentucky
Gubernatorial
candidate Sonny Landham. He
appeared in two episodes of
Zorro filmed in Madrid, Spain in
1991.
He
had a starring role in the 1990 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the
Universe, and supporting roles in The Running Man, Demolition Man, Repossessed, Ricochet, The Master of Disguise (in which
he steals the Liberty
Bell
), and Batman & Robin - the
first and last of these also starring Schwarzenegger.
Ventura also made a cameo appearance in
Major League II, as "White Lightning". He
also appeared as a self help guru (voice only) in
The Ringer trying to turn
Johnny Knoxville into a more confident
worker. Ventura also had a cameo in
The
X-Files episode "
Jose Chung's From Outer
Space" as a
Man in Black
alongside fellow 'MiB'
Alex Trebek. In
2008, Ventura filmed the independent comedy
Woodshop,
starring as a high school shop teacher named Mr. Madson. The film
is scheduled for 2009 release.
Political career
Mayor of Brooklyn Park
Following
his departure from the WWF, Ventura took advice from a former high
school teacher and ran for mayor of Brooklyn
Park, Minnesota
in 1990. Ventura defeated the city's 18-year
incumbent mayor and served from 1991 to 1995.
Governor of Minnesota
Ventura ran for Governor of Minnesota in 1998 as the nominee for
the Reform Party of Minnesota (he later joined the
Independence Party of
Minnesota when the Reform Party broke from its association with
the
Reform
Party of the United States of America). His campaign consisted
of a combination of aggressive
grassroots
events and original television spots, designed by quirky adman
Bill Hillsman, using the phrase "Don't
vote for politics as usual." He spent considerably less than his
opponents (about $300,000) and was a pioneer in his using the
Internet as a medium of reaching out to
voters in a political campaign.
He won
the election in November 1998, narrowly (and unexpectedly)
defeating the major-party candidates, St.
Paul
mayor Norm Coleman
(Republican) and
Minnesota Attorney General
Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (
Democratic-Farmer-Labor).
After his victory, bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the slogan
"My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota. The
nickname "Jesse 'The Mind'" (from a last-minute Hillsman ad
featuring Ventura posing as Rodin's
Thinker) began to
resurface sarcastically in reference to his frequently
controversial remarks. Ventura's old stage name "Jesse 'The Body'"
(sometimes adapted to "Jesse 'The Governing Body'") also continued
to appear with some regularity.
After the
legislature refused to increase spending for security, Ventura
attracted criticism when he decided not to live in the governor's
mansion during his tenure, choosing instead to shut it down and
stay at his home in Maple Grove
. Critics pointed to the loss of jobs for
several working-class people at the mansion and the extra cost of
reopening the mansion later.
During his tenure as Governor, Ventura drew frequent fire from the
press in the Twin Cities. He referred to reporters as "media
jackals," a term that even appeared on the press passes required to
enter the governor's press area. Shortly after Ventura's election
as governor, author and
humorist
Garrison Keillor wrote a
satirical book about the event, spoofing Ventura as
"Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente," a self-aggrandizing former "Navy
W.A.L.R.U.S. (Water Air Land Rising Up Suddenly)" turned
professional wrestler turned politician. Initially, Ventura
responded angrily to the satire, but later, in a conciliatory vein,
said that Keillor "makes Minnesota proud". During his term, Ventura
appeared on
The Late
Show with David Letterman,
in which he responded controversially to the following question:
"So which is the better city of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis or St.
Paul?". Ventura responded, "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul
must have been designed by drunken Irishmen". He later apologized
for the remark, adding that it was not intended to be taken
seriously.
After a
trade mission to China
in 2002, he
announced that he would not run for a second term. He
accused the media of hounding him and his family for personal
behavior and belief while neglecting coverage of important policy
issues. Ventura later told a reporter for
The Boston Globe that he would have
run for a second term if he had been single, citing the media's
effect on his family life.
Governor Ventura sparked media criticism when, nearing the end of
his term, he suggested that he might resign from office early to
allow his lieutenant governor,
Mae
Schunk, an opportunity to serve as governor. He further stated
that he wanted her to be the state's first female governor and have
her portrait painted and hung in the Capitol along with the other
governors. Ventura quickly retreated from the comments, saying he
was just floating an idea.
Political positions
Ventura's
main campaign promise was a tax refund to
Minnesota residents. The state was running a
budget surplus at the time, and Ventura believed that
the money should be given back to the public. In
political debate, he often admitted that he
had not formed an opinion on certain
policy
questions. Sharing some views with
libertarian, Ventura frequently described
himself as "fiscally
conservative and
socially
liberal." He selected teacher
Mae Schunk as his running mate. His
participation in the 1998 Minnesota Governor debates boosted his
popularity as a candidate.
Later as governor, he came to support a
unicameral (one-house)
legislature,
light
rail public transport,
property tax
reform,
gay rights, and
abortion rights. In an interview on
The
Howard Stern Show, he affirmed his support of gay rights,
including gay marriage and gays in the military, stating he
would've gladly served alongside homosexuals when he was a Navy
SEAL as they would've provided less competition for women. While
funding
public
school education generously, he opposed the teachers' union,
and did not have a high regard for the public funding of
higher education institutions.
Additionally, Ventura supported the use of
medicinal marijuana,
advocated a higher role for
third parties in national
politics, and favored the concept of
instant-runoff voting.
Lacking a
party base in the
Minnesota House and
Senate, Governor Ventura's policy
ambitions had little chance of being introduced as bills.
Initially, the residents of Minnesota feared Governor Ventura's
vetoes would be overturned. Ventura vetoed 45
bills in his first year, and only 3 of those vetoes were
overridden. The reputation for having his vetoes overridden comes
from his fourth and final year, where 6 of his 9 vetoes were
overturned.
Ventura was elected on a Reform party ticket, but he never received
support from
Ross Perot's Texas faction.
When the Reform party was taken over by
Pat
Buchanan supporters before the
presidential elections
of 2000, Ventura left the party in February 2000, referring to
it as 'hopelessly dysfunctional'. However, he maintained close ties
to the
Independence
Party of Minnesota, which also broke from the Reform party
around the same time.
During the first part of his administration, Ventura strongly
advocated for land-use reform and substantial
mass transit improvements, such as
light rail.
In his March 1999 State address, he
proclaimed, "I want to ride a train by 2002," referring to a
light rail line running between downtown
Minneapolis and the Mall of America
. He made the light rail project a priority,
obtaining additional funding from the Minnesota state legislature
to keep the project moving. The
Hiawatha
Line was completed in 2004.
Ventura vetoed a bill to require
recitation of the
Pledge of Allegiance in
public schools,
saying:
During
another trade mission to Cuba
in the
summer of 2002, he denounced the economic sanctions of the US against that
country.
Wellstone memorial
Ventura greatly disapproved of some of the actions that took place
at the 2002 memorial for
Senator Paul
Wellstone, his family, and others who died in a plane crash on
October 25, 2002. Ventura said, "I feel used. I feel violated and
duped over the fact that [the memorial ceremony] turned into a
political rally". He left
halfway through the controversial speech made by Wellstone's best
friend,
Rick Kahn.
Ventura
had initially planned to appoint a Democrat to Wellstone's seat,
but he instead appointed Dean Barkley
to represent Minnesota in the Senate until Wellstone's term expired in
January 2003.
Statements
Religion
In a
Playboy interview, he said,
"Organized
religion is
a sham and a crutch for weak-minded
people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and
stick their noses in other people's business." In his 1999
best-selling
memoir I Ain't Got Time to
Bleed, Ventura responded to the controversy sparked by these
remarks by elaborating on his views concerning religion: "I’d like
to clarify [my comments published in
Playboy] about
religious people being weak-minded. I didn’t mean all religious
people. I don’t have any problem with the vast majority of
religious folks. I count myself among them, more or less. But I
believe because it makes sense to me, not because I think it can be
proven. There are lots of people out there who think they know the
truth about
God and religion, but does anybody
really know for sure? That’s why the
founding fathers built
freedom of religious belief into
the structure of this nation, so that everybody could make up their
minds for themselves. But I do have a problem with the people who
think they have some right to try to impose their beliefs on
others. I hate what the
fundamentalist fanatics are doing to our country. It seems as
though, if everybody doesn’t accept their version of reality, that
somehow invalidates it for them. Everybody must believe the same
things they do. That’s what I find weak and destructive."
Ventura endorsed
equal rights for
religious minorities, as well as
people who
don't believe in God, by
declaring July 4, 2002, "Indivisible Day" through this
proclamation:
Governor Ventura proclaimed October 13–19, 2002 as "Christian
Heritage Week" in Minnesota.
Prostitution
Ventura has publicly stated that
prostitution should be legal, since it will
exist in any case, and legal controls protecting the health of
clients and workers are needed. He said "I voted in hopes to make
prostitution legal once, and I'd do it again in a second."
Other media
Between
1995 and his run for governor in 1998, Ventura had radio call-in shows on (KFAN 1130) and (KSTP
1500) in Minneapolis – Saint Paul
. Jesse had a brief role on the television
soap opera
The Young and the
Restless in 1999
Ventura has been criticized for privately profiting from his
heightened popularity. He was hired as a television analyst for the
failed
XFL football enterprise,
served as a referee at a World Wrestling
Federation match, and published several books during his tenure
as governor. On his weekly radio show, he often criticized the
media for focusing on these deals rather than on his
policy proposals.
Post-gubernatorial life
Ventura was succeeded in his office by Republican
Tim Pawlenty. He began a cable television show
in October 2003, on
MSNBC called
Jesse
Ventura's America. The show was broadcast once a week, on
Saturdays, unlike many MSNBC shows which are on five nights a week
(this show was originally planned for five nights a week as well,
but MSNBC executives changed their minds).
At the time of its
airing, Jesse Ventura's America was the only national
television show filmed in Minnesota. Among his guests were
Charles Barkley,
Gray
Davis,
Arianna Huffington,
Rob Kampia, and Kathy McKee.
In 2004,
fellow Navy veteran and Harvard
graduate student Christopher Mora promoted the idea
that the academic establishment had failed to reach out to citizens
experienced in public service, but who did not fit the traditional
idea of a politician. He successfully lobbied for the
selection of Ventura, who started teaching a study group at Harvard
University for the Spring 2004 semester as a visiting
fellow at the
Kennedy School of
Government's Institute of Politics (IOP). His 90-minute study
group focused on third party politics, campaign finance, the war on
drugs, and other relevant political issues. Ventura scheduled
multiple famous friends to appear for his seminars including
Dean Barkley and
Richard Marcinko.
On
October 22, 2004, with Ventura by his side, former Maine
Governor
Angus King endorsed John Kerry for President at the Minnesota state
capitol building. Ventura did not speak at the press
conference. When prodded for a statement, Governor King responded,
"He plans to vote for
John Kerry, but he
doesn't want to make a statement and subject himself to the tender
mercies of the Minnesota press".
In
November 2004, an advertisement began airing in California featuring Ventura. In it, Ventura voices his
opposition to Governor
Arnold
Schwarzenegger's policies regarding
Native American
casinos. Like Hogan, Schwarzenegger at one
point was also a close friend of Ventura as well, but since
Schwarzenegger's victory in California, Ventura has not reportedly
given him any praise; Schwarzenegger didn't even mention Ventura's
name in an interview with
Fox News
in 2005, where reporter
Chris
Wallace asked him if he was "the next Jesse Ventura". Ventura
is serving as an advisory board member for a new group called
Operation
Truth, a
non-profit
organization set up "to give voice to troops who served in
Iraq." “The current use of the
National Guard is
wrong....These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign
nations”.
In August 2005, Ventura became the spokesperson for
BetUS, an online
Sportsbook.
In 2005, Ventura repeatedly discussed leaving the United States. In
September 2005, Ventura announced on
The Mike Malloy Show that he was
leaving the U.S. and planned to "have an adventure". In late
October 2005, he went on the
The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch and reiterated that he was
leaving the U.S. due to, among other things,
censorship.
He has since moved to Baja
California, Mexico
.
In September 2006, Ventura endorsed and campaigned with independent
Texas gubernatorial candidate
Kinky
Friedman, and Independence Party of Minnesota 's gubernatorial
candidate
Peter Hutchinson and Team
Minnesota.
He revealed he now spends much of his time
surfing near his home in Mexico
.
In April 2008, a book authored by Ventura, titled
Don't Start
the Revolution Without Me was released. In it, Ventura
describes a hypothetical campaign in which he is a candidate for
President of the United
States in
2008, running as
an
independent. In an
interview with the
Associated Press
at the time of the book's release, however, Ventura denied any
plans for a presidential bid, stating that the scenario is only
imaginary and not indicative of a "secret plan to run". On
MinnPost.com, Ventura's agent, Steve Schwartz,
describes the book thus:"[Ventura is revealing] why he left
politics and discussing the disastrous war in Iraq, why he sees our
two-party system as corrupt, and what
Fidel
Castro told him about who was really behind the assassination
of
President Kennedy."
However, in an interview on
CNN's
The Situation Room on April 7,
Ventura hinted that he was considering entering the
race for
the
United States Senate seat
then held by Norm Coleman, his Republican opponent in the 1998
Gubernatorial race.
A poll commissioned by Twin
Cities station Fox
9
put him at 24 percent, behind Al Franken at 32 percent and Norm Coleman at 39 percent in a hypothetical
three-way race. However, Ventura announced on
Larry King Live on July 14, 2008 that
he would not run.
He spoke at former Republican presidential candidate
Ron Paul's "
Rally for the
Republic", organized by the
Campaign for Liberty, on September 2,
2008. At the event, Ventura implied a possible future run at the
U.S. Presidency. Ventura stated before a live audience that "If
America proves itself worthy, in
2012 we'll give
them a race they'll never forget!"
TV Week is reporting that Ventura is in
negotiations with
20th Television to
host a half-hour
court show that would debut
in the fall of 2009.
On Bush/Cheney Administration and torture
In a May 11, 2009 interview with
Larry
King, Ventura twice stated that
George W. Bush
was the worst president of his lifetime, adding "
President Obama inherited something I wouldn't
wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's
borderline depression." On the issue of waterboarding, Ventura
added:
Ventura then stated that he had no respect for Dick Cheney because
he is "a guy who got five deferments from the
Vietnam War. Clearly, he's a coward. He wouldn't
go when it was his time to go. And now he is a
chickenhawk. Now he is this big tough
guy who wants this hardcore policy. And he's the guy that
sanctioned all this torture by calling it 'enhanced
interrogation'." Ventura also expressed interest in being appointed
ambassador to Cuba should U.S. relations with Cuba continue to
improve.
On a May
18, 2009 appearance on The View,
Ventura asked Elisabeth
Hasselbeck if waterboarding is acceptable, why were not
Oklahoma
City bombers
, Timothy McVey and
Terry Nichols waterboarded. "We
only seem to waterboard Muslims."
Comparing the waterboarding of detainees
to the North Vietnamese torture of
American P.O.W.s, Ventura asserted,
"We created our own Hanoi
Hilton
in Guantánamo
. That's our Hanoi Hilton." "'Enhanced
interrogation' is Dick Cheney changing a word. Dick Cheney changed
a word to cover his ass."
On May 20, 2009, Ventura appeared on
Fox & Friends. When
Brian Kilmeade told Ventura that he would
stop supporting waterboarding when "they're dead." Ventura
responded, "Really? Have you enlisted? Have you enlisted or are you
just talking?... Go walk the walk, don't talk the talk." After
Ventura quoted
Thomas Jefferson in
saying that dissent is the highest form of patriotism, Kilmeade
walked off the set.
Questions regarding 9/11
In April and May 2008, Jesse Ventura, in several radio interviews
for his new book,
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me,
expressed concerns about what he described as some of the
unanswered questions of the
September 11 attacks. His remarks about
the possibility that the
World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were also
repeated in newspaper and television stories following some of the
interviews.
Ventura was interviewed on the
Alex
Jones radio show on April 2, 2008, on
Opie and Anthony on April 8, 2008, and on
the
The Howard Stern
Show on May 21, 2008, discussing his views on 9/11 with
the shows' hosts.
He said that he felt that many unanswered
questions remain, and he believes that World Trade
Center
Building 7, which was not struck by a plane, collapsed on the
afternoon of 9/11 in a manner which resembled a well executed
controlled
demolition Ventura stated:
He also states the Twin Towers appeared to be pulverized to dust,
that they fell at virtually free-fall speed, and that no other
massive steel-framed buildings had ever collapsed in this manner
due to fire before.
On May 18, 2009, when asked by
Sean
Hannity of Fox News, how George W. Bush could have avoided the
attacks of September 11, 2001, Ventura answered, "Well, you pay
attention to
memos
on August 6th that tell you exactly what
bin Laden's gonna do."
Television career
In August 2009, it was announced that Ventura will host
TruTV's new show
Conspiracy Theory.
Ventura will travel the country, investigating cases and getting
input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a
theory's validity."Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers
into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty
characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement. The program
is scheduled to debut on December 2, 2009.
Personal life
In 1975, Ventura married his wife Terry. The couple have two grown
children: a son, Tyrel (b. 1980), and a daughter, Jade (b.
1983).
During his wrestling days, Ventura used
anabolic steroids. He admitted this after
retiring from competition, and went on to make public service
announcements and appear in printed ads and on posters warning
young people about the potential dangers and potential health risks
of abusing steroids.
In 2002, Ventura was hospitalized for a severe blood clot in his
lungs, the same kind of injury that ended his wrestling
career.
Electoral history
- 1998 election for Governor
In wrestling
- Nicknames
- "The Great"
- "The Body"
- "The Mouth"
- "The Actor"
- "The Governor"
Championships and accomplishments
- International Wrestling Institute and Museum
- Pro Wrestling
Illustrated
- PWI ranked him #239 of the 500 best singles
wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
- PWI ranked him #67 of the 100 best tag teams
of the "PWI Years" with Adrian
Adonis
Books
- I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Reworking the Body Politic from the
Bottom Up (ISBN 978-0451200860)
- Do I Stand Alone?: Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and
Media Jackals (ISBN 978-0743405874)
- Jesse Ventura Tells It Like It Is: America's Most Outspoken
Governor Speaks Out About Government (co-authored with Heron
Marquez) (ISBN 978-0822503859)
- Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (co-authored with
Dick Russell) (ISBN 978-1602392731)
Notes
References
- deFiebre, Conrad. "Record-high job approval for Ventura; Many
Minnesotans like his style, don't mind moonlighting." Star Tribune 22 July 1999: 1A+.
- deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry."
Star Tribune 23 October 2004:
1A+.
- Kahn, Joseph P. " The Body Politic." The Boston Globe 25 February 2004.
Accessed April 28, 2004.
- Olson, Rochelle and Bob von Sternberg. "GOP demands equal time;
Wellstone aide apologizes; Ventura upset." Minneapolis
Star-Tribune 31 October 2002: 1A+.
External links
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