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Jesse Ventura revealed that WrestleMania was shown in court when he sued the WWE in the 1990s.
The WWE legend famously took the company to court in 1991, claiming unpaid royalties on video sales. The company refused to pay royalties to announcers, which led to a $2 million lawsuit against Vince McMahon.
Jesse Ventura was awarded over $800,000 by the court. This only happened after footage of WrestleMania III was played for the jury, much to the amusement of “The Body”.
Speaking on The Body Shop podcast, Jesse Ventura recalled his court case with the WWE. He recalled playing Randy Savage vs Ricky Steamboat from WrestleMania III in the courtroom, once with commentary and once without. (H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.)
The idea was to show the jury how important commentary was to a match. He recalled the jury nearly falling asleep with the sound off, which helped him win the case and get a hefty payout.
Jesse Ventura On Playing WrestleMania In The Court Room
“During my trial with the WWF then, over videotape royalties and all of that, they tried to poo-poo my importance. They said that announcers didn’t mean sh*t. Do you know what we did in court? You’re gonna love hearing this story. In court, in front of the jury, we played them WrestleMania III, ‘Macho Man’ against (Ricky) Steamboat.” Jesse Ventura said.
“First, we played it for the jury with (Gorilla) Monsoon and I broadcasting it. Then we played it to the jury with nobody talking. A silent film. You should have seen — the greatest match in history, halfway through it, the jury’s falling asleep. They’re all wandering and looking at stuff throughout the courtroom.”
“They’re not even paying attention anymore because WWF tried to say that broadcasting didn’t mean nothing, and so we played them the greatest match with broadcasting and without out it and we let the jury decide how important the broadcasting was and guess who came through as a shining star for me in that trial? You’ll never believe. Verne Gagne… Verne Gagne agreed to testify. His quote to my attorney was this… he said, ‘I hate Vince a lot more than Jesse so yeah, I’ll testify.’”
“So, the whole thing was based on who he hated most and he hated Vince (McMahon) worse than he hated me. So, he testified. But he was brilliant. You know what he got up and said in front of the jury? Now this is regular people. Verne Gagne got up there and told that jury, he said, ‘Jesse Ventura is to pro wrestling what John Madden is to Monday Night Football.’ I could have kissed him.”
