During a recent edition of his “1 Of A Kind” podcast, Rob Van Dam discussed Jesse Ventura returning to WWE commentary for Saturday Night’s Main Event.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Jesse Ventura returning to WWE to do commentary for Saturday Night’s Main Event: “I think that’s cool for the retro value of it. You know, I grew up watching Saturday Night’s Main Event as am a big fan, and I love hearing Jesse Ventura talking, commentating. You know, him and Vince McMahon doing play-by-play, that was the s**t. I didn’t know Vince owned the company back then; a lot of us didn’t know. But the way they would play off of each other, that was the heel-babyface split that helped us understand everything about wrestling, you know? Right up there with Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon.
“What did I like about him? There’s a lot to like about Jesse. He was always the cool guy. He was always the heel in an entertaining way, watching him commentate. If the straight guy commentator was to say, ‘My God, look at him completely cheating behind the ref’s back!’ And Jesse could be like, ‘What? I didn’t see anything!’ That kind of s**t was funny, like he didn’t see it, or he would make up excuses for, you know, ‘What? He almost slipped, and then he caught — he was losing his balance, and then he happened to catch him on the rope!’ He would make up funny s**t and make it sound like looking at it from that perspective was right, and he would do it in a heel way. So I really liked all of that.”
On Ventura’s trying to start a union in WWF: “Thinking of him, it’s hard to not think about the union thing, because that’s been brought up so many times, that he allegedly was going to get a union together and Hulk Hogan stooged him off. Blah, blah, blah. I’m not mad at anybody for that on any side. On Hogan’s side, okay. Yeah of course, what did he owe Jesse to not stooge him off? He’s closer to Vince anyway, you know. And that’s his job, and that’s his company, you know what I mean? He was in the driver’s seat.”
On whether he met Ventura: “I think maybe just shook his hand. I definitely never got to know him. I liked it when he was Governor. I like his political beliefs, you know. Like, he’s not afraid to go ahead and expose the government. Even though a lot of this stuff, if you start talking about the elite that really runs everything, people aren’t even ready to hear that yet. But when you got a guy inside telling you about it, it gives it a little credit.”
