WWE Hall Of Famer Jesse Ventura Addresses Relationship With Vince McMahon

WWE Hall of Famer Jesse Ventura has addressed his relationship with former Executive Chairman Vince McMahon. Ventura had been saying he was in talks with WWE back in April, citing the company's new direction under Triple H and TKO Group Holdings as a major contributing factor. Then, in July he was spotted backstage at "WWE Raw" in Minnesota having a moment with another to have left McMahon's WWE to return under new leadership: CM Punk. Ventura looked back on his ups and downs with the former CEO on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet."

"I've always admired Vince," he started. "I was [just] at the point in wrestling, I was going to quit ... I had saved up enough money, I had opened up a weightlifting gym, Ventura's Gym. It was supporting me, and it gave what you need in wrestling at that time. And I'll be very blunt, it's 'F you' money. To where you can say F you and walk away. The gym did that for me. It gave me leverage. At the time, if they were mistreating me, fine, I'll go run my gym.'" Ventura was with the promotion from 1984 until 1990, only making sporadic later appearances with WWE, including a brief return to commentary in 2009. He opined that he was never brought fully back into the fold because he refused to be owned.  

"Vince and I were not totally adversarial," said Ventura, "It's just that he couldn't have me around. Because I'm the proverbial stallion outside of the corral. You know, he has to have everyone in the corral. That's why I was fired. I owned the rights to Jesse "The Body" Ventura. I have them registered ... and Vince wanted them. I said 'No, Jesse Ventura belongs to me. You want them, you deal with me.' And he couldn't do that because he owned everybody. That's why I called it slavery."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Insight with Chris Van Vliet," with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.