There was a time in the 1980s when Jesse Ventura was one of the most popular members of the WWE – then the WWF – Universe.
He was a championship-caliber in-ring worker, a fantastic talker, and is still widely regarded as the borderline prototype for a color commentator in the booth, especially for ex-wrestlers looking for a new lease on their careers.
And yet, he almost had another accolade on his resume that is as impressive as they come: union organizer.
That's right, while Ventura's political ambitions are no surprise to fans now, as he was the governor of Minnesota, even when he was a member of Vince McMahon's company, “The Body” still had ambitions to make things better for his fellow man, going so far as to try to set up a WWE Union. The only problem, Hulk Hogan sold him out to Mr. McMahon and ruined the pursuit on the spot, as Ventura explained in a special appearance on MSNBC.
“It doesn't surprise me because when I was in wrestling in the 80s, I tried to unionize wrestling. It was Hulk Hogan who cut my legs out from under me. Hulk Hogan went to Vince McMahon, ratted me out, and subsequently, later on, cost me my job. It doesn't surprise me to see Hogan with the Republicans because Hogan is as anti-union as you can get,” Ventura told MSNBC via Fightful.
“There is still not a union in professional wrestling. The reason I tried to do it. I was in an elevator and ran into Gene Upshaw, the great guard from the Oakland Raiders. Big Gene raised his finger up and looked at me, and said, ‘You boys need to form a union.' I tried to do it, and it was Hulk Hogan that ratted me out to Vince McMahon, and subsequently, I was fired and lost my job.”
Unfortunately for Ventura, WWE – or AEW, TNA, or NWA, for that matter – still doesn't have a union, with wrestlers hired as independent contractors and thus exempt from many of the benefits many assume they are afforded. While it's impossible to know if some progressive worker will again take up the mantle and try his best to get the boys in the back on the same page as a collective, for now, the situation most wrestlers find themselves in is much different than what some fans might expect, in no small part because of the “Hulkster.”
Matt Hardy reveals his hazing experience in the WWE locker room
Speaking of the WWE locker room, Matt Hardy was also in the news recently for his own locker room experience, namely hazing early on in The Hardy Boyz run alongside his brother Jeff.
After showing up late for a show and drawing the ire of noted bully JBL, the Hardyz found their bags missing… at least until they found them in the trash after the show.
“I remember we came out, I said, ‘Excuse me guys,' maybe it was Bob Holly, ‘Did you happen to see anyone leave with our bags? They got our clothes and all our money, and everything is in those bags.' He said, ‘Well, no, I don't know where your bags are. If you came and you dressed in the wrestling locker room and you got here on time, we would have looked after them. Well, you're in here like a big star, somebody probably walked in and stole them. Maybe you'll get here earlier next time.' Then I said, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Bradshaw, do you happen to know where your bags are?' I said, ‘Did someone take them? I guess that's what happens when you dress in your own private locker room because you're that big of a deal.' We just start searching throughout the arena. We probably searched for an hour, an hour, and fifteen minutes,” Matt Hardy explained via Fightful.
“The show is starting to wind down, and Road Dogg grabs me, pulls me aside. He says, ‘Hey, your bags are in the dumpster right outside, but they got zipped up real good. But they got zipped up real good, so your stuff didn't get messed up. But don't you tell anyone that I told you because I don't want none of the heat that you have.' We did, we finally found our bags, but that was a very commonplace thing back in those days, in the Attitude Era. The hazing was unreal.”
Would the Hardys have still been bullied if WWE had a union? Yes, that aspect of professional wrestling will sadly never go away but if the performers did have more security and solidarity, who knows, maybe they would all get along a little bit better as a result.
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