Opinion
Jesse Ventura Made Things What They Are Today
A journey that took him from the equally crazy worlds of professional wrestling and American politics, Jesse “The Body” Ventura paved the way for so many people–in BOTH worlds!
I grew up as a huge fan of politics & professional wrestling. They appealed to me for many of the same reasons:
- Both featured great communicators. Whether it was Bill Clinton talking about feeling our pain, or Ric Flair talking about riding Space Mountain, as a shy kid I admired people that could talk a good game.
- They were adversarial in nature. In wrestling you had good guys & bad guys. In politics you had the Democrats & the Republicans. Wrestling going to shades of grey during the late 90s followed in the footsteps of politics. Sometimes you didn’t know who to root for.
A lot of people my age or older are bitter over how the wrestling business has evolved. Maybe part of the reason I’m not as bitter over the state of wrestling is because I reserve most of my bitterness for the state of politics. Government is a much more important endeavor than sports entertainment, yet I think the average pro wrestler takes their profession & responsibility to their supporters more seriously than the average politician.
This isn’t a new development. That’s why I always thought that somebody that was hugely successful in pro wrestling could translate well to politics, given that they had a focused message and weren’t a complete train wreck out of the ring. They had a similar skill set to good politicians, and they cared more.
I wasn’t in the majority on this. After all, wrestling was a silly, uncouth bit of nonsense. People thought that all wrestlers were unintelligent maniacs that had to resort to beating themselves up to make a buck. The idea of a lowly wrestler sitting in public office instead of an intelligent lawyer or businessman or someone that had grown up in the political game was insanity.
Politics + Wrestling
Back in 1998, the idea of Jesse “The Body” Ventura being elected Governor of Minnesota was laughable to most observers. It wasn’t to me. While Jesse did have an in-ring career of some note, he is far more remembered in pro wrestling for his time as a color commentator. He had the gift of gab. He could talk intelligently & make people believe that whatever he said was real. Of course that would translate to politics!
He wasn’t the first man to step behind the microphone and call matches as a heel. Gordon Solie was joined on commentary from time to time by heels over the years, Roddy Piper being the most notable among those men. Jesse was the first to do it on a full-time basis for a national promotion, and he changed the expectations people had for wrestling announcing. Now, people expect a heel color commentator, and are disappointed when they don’t have one. Corey Graves can thank Jesse for his current role on WWE television. As much as we all love Bobby Heenan, it was Jesse’s absence while filming movies that gave him the chance to co-host Prime Time Wrestling & get all those commentary gigs at various arenas sitting next to Gorilla Monsoon. Which is another reason we are all thankful for Jesse Ventura…he stepped aside & gave us that Gorilla/Bobby magic.
Not a Fountain of Misinformation
Jesse claimed to call it like it was. He gave the babyfaces credit when they deserved it, but would also call them (and his broadcast colleague) out on their blatant hypocrisy. He typically defended the heels, but would acknowledge when they made bone-headed mistakes & deserved to lose. I do think the line he treaded is something that a lot of heel announcers after him failed to appreciate. You need to have some level of credibility. Jesse had it, most of the people after him didn’t.
And let’s be honest, everything bad he said about Hulk Hogan ended up being 100% accurate! The man formed the New World Order and was also a racist. Not the type of guy that the kiddies should be looking up to.
“The Body” Becomes “The Mind”
Despite being a great communicator, a war veteran, a former mayor & much more charismatic than his opponents in the election, not to mention having a stronger Internet presence than the others, Ventura was still considered the underdog due to his wrestling background. The world was shocked when the voters of Minnesota elected Ventura Governor on November 3, 1998. The polling had indicated that his two opponents were neck & neck several points in front of him. Norm Coleman was a career politician & Skip Humphrey was a career politician whose father was a Vice President of the United States and had the Metrodome named after him.
The odds & the polls were stacked against Ventura, but Jesse appealed to voters that were off the radar of the pollsters. Does this sound familiar to anybody else?
They Shocked The World
Ventura scoffs at the idea that he paved the way for the man currently seated in the Oval Office. While he & Donald Trump were friendly at one time, Trump’s right-wing policies since ramping up his political activity don’t sit well with Ventura. Ventura currently lives in Mexico, and finds Trump’s immigration policies offensive. However, one can’t deny that Ventura crashing through the celebrity barrier paved the way. Other people with more experience in television than politics would follow.
Jesse’s good friend & co-star in multiple movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger, became Governor of California. Arnold was always serious about politics, but the idea of him getting elected was doubtful until Jesse’s win in Minnesota. Jesse’s not very good friend Hulk Hogan considered a run for President, as he figured that if Jesse could be a governor, being President would be easy for the Hulkster, brother. An interview with Jay Leno on political matters put that thought to a halt. Jerry Lawler, Bob Backlund & several other wrestlers ran for various offices with limited success.
They Got Entrenched
It wasn’t until recently that political aspirants with wrestling backgrounds saw more success. WWE Hall of Famer Trump pushed the door even more open by naming Linda McMahon the Administrator of the Small Business Administration. To her credit, she’s one of the few Trump cabinet-level appointees that hasn’t done anything illegal, illicit or otherwise questionable. Linda had two high-profile Senate runs in Connecticut that didn’t result in much success. Does a McMahon even make it past a Senate primary without others paving the way to make “wrestler” an ok thing for a politician to have been? Probably not.
Glenn Jacobs did what Jerry Lawler couldn’t do & got elected mayor of a major city in Tennessee. At one time, Kane was a die-hard Libertarian that abhorred politics. Now he’s a run of the mill Trump Republican. The road was easier.
Trump Made It Bigger
If anything, Trump took Ventura’s road to success to the next level. Ventura ran as a third party candidate. He was able to use his force of personality on the people, but the politicians often didn’t go along for the ride. Maybe Ventura could have ran as a Democrat or Republican & found success. Neither party represented what he stood for. He wasn’t going to compromise. Trump was able to reach forgotten people like Ventura did, but he took it a step further. He made the Republican Party go along for the ride. He’s re-shaped the GOP in his own image. He didn’t have to compromise either.
Jesse Ventura had a large role in sending politics & wrestling in their current direction. Maybe it’s not the direction his supporters would have liked. One can’t deny that he paved the way for the people responsible for both.
Dr. Frankenstein didn’t like his monster either.
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Opinion
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY – Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
Powered by RedCircle
Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!