Jesse Ventura: Former Wrestling Champion Reflects on Industry, New Television Show

Source: csbsju.edu

Walking away from the professional wrestling industry wasn’t a hard decision for World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Famer Jesse “The Body” Ventura.

After a nearly 20-year career in the industry, beginning as a performer in the Central States territory and ending as a color commentator for World Championship Wrestling, he hung up his boots and walked away.

“It was not a hard decision for me,” the former tag team champion said in a phone interview earlier this week. “When I made the decision, I moved on, and one of the things I’m most proud of is that when I said I retired, I did. I never made a comeback, nor did I ever attempt one, nor will I.”

“It’s a young man’s game, as all sports are, and when your time is up, you move on. Father Time tells you when and you can’t look back, you can only look forward, and you can’t relive what you’ve already done, you can only live what’s coming up. That’s how I live life. My true goal now is to become as good a surfer as I was a wrestler.”

In the years since he’s left the business, Ventura has made few appearances inside the squared circle, serving as guest referee for a triple threat match between Mankind, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Triple H for the WWF Championship at SummerSlam 1999 in Minneapolis and being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004.

Other business ventures

Source: allposters.com

Following his departure from wrestling, Ventura remained in the public spotlight, serving as mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minn., from 1991 to 1995 and governor of his home state from 1999 to 2003.

“I’ve never really had a plan,” Ventura said. “I just go where the winds take me. I’m a free spirit. I never came out of high school saying some day I would get elected to public office; that was probably the farthest thing from my mind and never made its way in, but life takes its strange turns.”

“I’m 58 years old now, and I think you learn in 58 years that you truly don’t know the future and so you just ride the horse and see what trail it takes you down. Sometimes you have to make career decisions, and some are good, some are bad, but they all end up being fun.”

Ventura’s latest business venture will put him in millions of homes this winter as he hosts the seven-episode inaugural season of “Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura,” a reality series premiering on truTV at 10 p.m. EST on Dec. 2.

The idea for the show came last fall, when Ventura filmed three pilots, hoping to make a break into the television business.

“They always say if you bat one-for-ten in the pilot world you’re doing pretty well,” he said. “Well, I hit one for three, which would put me in the baseball Hall of Fame.”

A long-time passion

Source: destructoid.com

While Ventura’s positions and views on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon have attracted much attention in the past eight years, his passion for investigating and researching conspiracy theories dates back decades before that historic day.

Ventura says it’s a passion with interesting ties to the changing world of professional wrestling and his own career in the ring.

“When we went through the transition of the territory era to the national era, everything switched from driving in cars to flying in airplanes, and with that switch came the ability for me to read a lot more because you spend hours in airports and certainly hours on airplanes when you’re in the professional wrestling business in the modern business of today,” he said.

“Because of that fact, I started reading and my passion became the John F. Kennedy conspiracy, and I  read and read as much as I could get my hands on, no matter how outrageous it was; whatever the story was, it was still fascinatingly interesting to me.”

“I find reading about conspiracies much more interesting to me personally than, say, a Tom Clancy novel or a Vince Flynn novel. Now they’re great writers, but they write only figments of their imagination. I believe I have my own imagination, and the nice thing about conspiracies is there’s the thread of truth that it might be real and that the people you read about are actually real and they exist or did exist in many cases.”

A ‘frightening’ experience

Source: starpulse.com

While his conspiracy theory interest began with the Kennedy assassination, Ventura didn’t have the opportunity to dive into the deep end of the 1963 event, as the seven episodes of the first season of “Conspiracy Theory” focus on events and topics relevant in the past decade.

Ventura joins Investigative Producers June Sarpong and Alex Piper and Executive Producer Michael Braverman to tackle topics including secret societies, global warming, the September 2001 terrorist attacks, a research center in Alaska and Armageddon during the course of the show.

But the original mission of the show, to objectively show both side of the conspiracy and let viewers make a decision, became increasingly difficult because of a continued lack of cooperation from the federal government, Ventura said.

“So the show evolved now to basically showing almost just the conspiracy side, and not by choice, not by our choice,” he said. “They won’t talk, they won’t cooperate on anything. It was exciting. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, and this was one of the most challenging.”

The lack of cooperation only adds fuel to the fire of the possibility that some of the claims people have alleged are, at the very least, rooted in truth, Ventura said.

“The interesting thing about doing this show was that the fact remains it might be true,” he said. “You can watch all seven of these episodes and say, ‘I don’t believe any of them.’ But I guarantee you this: if you watch them, whether you believe them or not, you’re going to get frightened, and that’s good TV in my opinion.”

Conviction without indictment

Source: tvweek.com

While the episode of the show exploring the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will likely delve into more detail, Ventura continues to promote a quest for answers from the government about the events of that day.

“What I find most interesting about 9/11 is how you’re not allowed to talk about it,” he said. “It’s that basic. You were told a government story, you’re to accept that story and you’re to comment no more on it, and that’s what’s happened.”

“Now why is it against the rules to talk about it; why is it against the rules to bring up questions that are still unanswered about it? I’ll give it to you in the most basic way I can, which should outrage people: We are a country that runs by the rule of law, or we’re supposed to be. Now within the rule of law, you have certain elements that have to be done, you have rules that have to be followed and the rule of law means you follow it when it’s inconvenient or convenient – it does not matter.”

“My point is this: how can we convict someone whom we haven’t even indicted? How do you get a conviction before an indictment? There’s a system we follow. There were murders that took place in New York – mass murders – yet Osama bin Laden has been convicted but never been indicted. Why? That’s the procedure. Why has the government not come forward, convene a grand jury, present their evidence and get an indictment? It’s been eight years.”

There are no stupid questions, Ventura said, noting that’s a lesson learned at a young age as a member of the Navy’s underwater demolition squad, the precursor of the Navy SEALs.

When the government becomes involved, people have even more right to question actions and denials of its representatives, he said.

“The government has lied to me so many times in my life, they have no credibility with me any more; they have to earn credibility with me, which means they have to answer questions,” Ventura said.

Join the Revolution and follow The Wrestling Daily on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. We always welcome feedback from our readers and we promise, we will listen.