Jesse Ventura: Respect from WWE talent has been ‘heartwarming’

Jesse Ventura is so happy that he made the decision to return to WWE.

In 2024, Ventura returned to the WWE fold by signing a Legends deal with the company. He has an on-screen role as part of the broadcast team for Saturday Night’s Main Event, which relaunched in December with quarterly specials airing on NBC and Peacock.

A new episode of Ventura’s The Body Shop podcast debuted on Substack this week with WWE wrestler Karrion Kross appearing as the guest. During their conversation, Ventura spoke about how well the talent in WWE has treated him. Ventura said it’s been a humbling experience to get so much respect from the wrestlers and fans.

“You guys have been so terrific to me, all the talent. I couldn’t ask for more respect,” Ventura said. “I can’t tell you how wonderful the talent is toward me. You know? It’s been heartwarming. It’s something that I’m so glad I did now. So glad that I’ve done it. And it’s something that I look forward to doing maybe for another year, and I’ll turn 75 next year, maybe then they’ll frickin’ retire me, I don’t know [laughs].”

When he was negotiating with WWE, Ventura was initially only offered one Saturday Night’s Main Event broadcast. He ended up increasing that to four shows — and he’s hoping to sign another deal for four more after that.

“They made an initial offer, which wasn’t quite good enough,” Ventura said about the negotiations. “And I countered them and they came back real solid — you know, no ifs, ands, buts. It was a good negotiation. We agreed at first only to do one. They’re doing four. But they wanted me for a whole day’s publicity. So I said, ‘All right, if I come out a day ahead of time and I do a whole day’s publicity, it’s got to be for more than one show.’ I said, ‘I want a guarantee for all four then — that I get all four shows.’ They came back and said, ‘No problem.’ You know? ‘No problem whatsoever.’ And I’ll state this: they come back for another four next year, and I hope I can sign and do four more Saturday Night’s Main Events next year.”

The next Saturday Night’s Main Event dates are advertised for May 24 and July 12. WWE has not announced the locations for those shows yet.

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