If I had told you about all this twenty years ago, I would have gotten myself in a world of hurt. I can only tell you this now because wrestling has pretty much been exposed, and the rules have changed. Everyone today knows it’s a show. Back then, though, there were unwritten laws within the business that kept you from letting any outsider in on how it was all done. If somebody called you a fake, it was considered an insult to your professional pride, and you’d probably hit them. This was way before the heyday of the personal-injury lawsuit.
In those days you didn’t get a guaranteed salary or fee. You were paid a percentage of the gate, so if you wanted to work and get paid, you had to prove to the promoters that you were a draw. Early in my career, I once wrestled sixty-three nights straight. But to really be a draw and make the money, you not only had to be great in the ring, you also had to be a tremendous talker when they handed you that microphone for the TV interviews. You had to make people hate you. You had to have a talent for irritating people. I did.
But I wasn’t one of the real bad guys in the wrestling business: The promoters had that market cornered. They’d tell you when to wrestle, where to wrestle, what moves to use, and whether you were going to win or lose, but at the same time they’d also call you an independent contractor so you’d have to pay self-employment tax. What’s “independent” about that? It was a fraud, a lie. We were employees, but we got no benefits. They had no loyalty to you either. Once you stopped bringing in the crowds, you were out of there. They wouldn’t give you a second thought.
After seven months of working out with former pro wrestler Eddie Sharkey at the Seventh Street Gym, and learning the ropes, I got the opportunity from promoters Bob Geigel, Gust Karras, and Pat O’Connor—the former world champ—for my first pro match. They called me back down to Kansas City and worked me in the ring with O’Connor for a couple of weeks until I had run out of money. They do that on purpose, because if you’re broke they know they have you. They know you’ll do anything they want you to do.
When I started wrestling, there were twenty-six different territories, with regionalized TV. You’d wrestle in one territory until you weren’t drawing in money, then you’d move to another territory. In the next territory, you’d be all new again, because there wasn’t national coverage like there is today. Lord Alfred Hayes, a popular local wrestler, was headed for a new part of the country. He had asked for a few days off to pack, so I was going to be filling in for him.
The first night I got into the pro ring was at Century II Auditorium in Wichita. I was going to be fighting a veteran babyface named Omar Atlas. When I arrived backstage, I could already hear the crowd getting rowdy. All the eyes, all the lights, all the focus was on that big square of light framed in ropes in the middle of the auditorium, where in a few minutes I was going to climb in and voluntarily get the shit pounded out of me.
Bob Geigel took me aside in a back room and said, “You know, kid, nobody wins their first match.”
I said, “I know.”
Bob called Omar into the room and told him, “This is the kid’s first match. Take care of him out there.”
Since it was my first match ever, Omar was to call the match more than I would, even though I was the bad guy. Bob told him, “If the match is the shits, hit him with two dropkicks, cover him, and beat him. But if you think the match is goin’ good, let him throw you out over the top rope.”
Throwing someone out over the top rope in those days was an automatic disqualification, but it was something the heel might do in desperation if he was getting the crap kicked out of him. He would throw the babyface over the ropes and out of the ring. He gets himself disqualified that way and loses the match, but he doesn’t get pinned. If you have to lose—and I did—your best odds are to lose in the showiest way possible. It was completely up to Omar. If he wanted to, he could finish me with two dropkicks.
I went in there and gave it all I had. I strutted out there, the world’s biggest braggart. I made fun of Omar, and when the crowd booed me, I climbed up on the ropes and insulted them. Did they hate me! Whenever I did something rotten to Omar, the crowd went nuts.
Finally it was time to “go home” for the finish. Omar and I were squared off in the ring. Lucky for me, Omar was a great guy and didn’t have a big ego. He knew the match was a huge success, and he knew I was going places. So he decided to give me a great finale. He gave me a little knowing smile and whispered, “Amigo, throw me out over the top.” I picked Omar up and tossed him out over the ropes. He landed with a heavy thud and immediately started “selling” the crowd, playing hurt. I paraded around the ring while they booed me like hell.
The promoters knew they had a winner. Later that night, Bob Geigel came up to me and said, “This is your first match? You look better’n some guys who’ve been eight or nine years out there!”
Coincidentally, the last match of my career, in Winnipeg in the spring of 1986 against Tony Atlas, ended the same way, with me getting disqualified. I began and ended with an Atlas and a disqualification. It was a nice, poetic way to end my career.
“The Body” caught on pretty fast after that. I developed a reputation for being outrageous, badder than bad. I had a talent for interacting with the fans. If you’re successful as a bad guy, you know nobody handed it to you. It’s up to you to draw the crowds, to develop the hatred. All the good guy has to do is stand for Mom, apple pie, and the girl back home. As the bad guy, you have to draw out a response. You have to make them hate you.
And back then, the fans truly hated the bad guys. You worked them into such frenzies that they really believed you were what you were in the ring. That’s another reason why I went by Jesse “The Body” Ventura, to protect myself and my family. It worked out well, because then I could have my phone number in my own name, and the fans had no way of knowing my real name was James Janos. It kept a cushion between the fans and my family. I didn’t take my family to matches often, because it was dangerous for them. One time I brought Terry to a match, and the crowd started pelting both of us with snow cones. Also, you really don’t need for your kids to see all these people screaming insults and throwing things at their dad. Terry, Tyrel, and Jade went by the last name Janos for years, up until 1984, when the World Wrestling Federation went national, exposed everything, and changed the whole business of wrestling from a spectacle of good guy against bad to a contest of personalities.
But until then, I had a fair number of run-ins with angry fans. One night in Sioux Falls around 1979 or 1980, I was in my dressing room after the match, and I heard this angry mob gathering outside the door. I’d done something rotten and beaten their favorite babyface, so they were out for my hide. I just stood there not knowing what to do, while the security guards were trying to get the crowd under control. All of a sudden, the door split in half—ka-BOOM! The top half of the door came sliding into the room. I looked out over the splintered remains of the door and saw what looked to be half of the Sioux Falls police department, out there in the middle of the melee with nightsticks, pounding away at these people, trying to keep them from beating the snot out of me.
I got the occasional death threat. I never took them seriously, because I figure the ones you have to watch out for are the ones that don’t warn you in advance. And besides, back then the heels got a police escort back to their dressing rooms every night.
There was a guy one night in Eugene, Oregon, who tried to kill me. I don’t remember who I was wrestling or how the match went. At the end of it, as the police were taking me back to my dressing room, a fight broke out at ringside. I figured they were needed more back there, and with the focus out on the fight I thought I’d be safe going the rest of the way by myself, so I turned the cops loose.
They disappeared, and I was alone. I thought I was safe. But all of a sudden, from around the back of the bleachers, came this young kid with a wild look in his eye. I recognized him from earlier that night. He’d been shouting something at me, and I’d told him to shut up—or pro
bably something a lot worse than that. And now he was coming at me. He looked at me with cold hatred and growled, “Ventura, I’m gonna stick this up your ass.”
Then he reached behind him and pulled out a wicked hunting knife with a ten-inch blade.
You can read in a guy’s eyes whether or not he has serious intent. This guy wasn’t sloppy, out-of-control mad; he was white with rage, but very calm. There was no doubt in my mind he was prepared to hurt me.
I was standing there in nothing but tights—a few thin strands of nylon away from being totally naked. I was completely on my own, but the SEAL training was kicking in. I was calculating how I was going to defend myself. I knew that without even so much as a towel to use as defense, I’d probably have to sacrifice something. I would most likely have to give him my arm before I could take him down.
But all of a sudden, somebody dropped silently out of the bleachers, rushed up behind the guy, spun him around, and handcuffed him. It turned out he was a plainclothes cop who had taken his kid to the matches that night. He just happened to look down at that moment and saw this guy coming at me with the knife.
That officer did an outstanding job. I thanked him even though, of course, they could do nothing to the guy because he was only sixteen years old. All they could do was release him to the custody of his parents.
That wasn’t the only time I’ve been assaulted—and the next time the perpetrator definitely wasn’t a minor. I was wrestling Tito Santana in Denver. Those matches were great because the crowds were heavily Latino, and they really hated me for what I did to Tito. In one match, Tito had thrown me out of the ring, and I was standing there beefing and whining and putting on a show. All of a sudden, I got this searing pain down the whole length of my spine. I spun around, ready to deck whoever did it. Standing there was this old lady, dripping in diamonds, with these long, long fingernails. This wealthy senior citizen had taken those nails and raked them down my back with all her strength. She drew blood; she had literally carved me open. I didn’t deck her, but I did tell the cops to arrest her. And they did. She was charged with assault, at the age of seventy.
But there were fans on the other end of the spectrum, too. There were rebellious young college kids who, just like I did when I was their age, rooted for the bad guy because it was the obnoxious thing to do. In fact, I once wrestled in a place where the entire crowd was rooting for me: Lino Lakes Prison. Prison crowds always cheer the bad guy and boo the good guy, but I was going to hedge my bet a little. Before the match, I went out and bought several cartons of cigarettes. I went into the ring that night and tossed them out to the inmates. I couldn’t have been more popular with them if I’d been tossing out gold.
I’d endeared myself to them. So that night, I had some help getting away with my dirty tricks! The referee would come stomping up to me and say, “Did you pull his hair?” I’d say, “No I didn’t—ask them!” And all the inmates would scream back “Noooooo!”
I enjoyed the support I got that night, but in spite of all the fun I had it was a little eerie to be going inside a prison. When I walked in and heard those doors clank closed behind me, I got a chill up the back of my neck. It was awfully nice to be let back out again at the end of the night.
It was worth it, though, because I could see I’d really brightened their days. They had a great time and they appreciated the fact that I’d come there to give them a show. To be perfectly honest, they behaved themselves better than a lot of the people I usually encountered out in the auditoriums.
Not all of the misbehavior came from the fans. I encountered it in the ring once, too. It was a tag-team match in Portland, Oregon, with me and Bull Ramos against Johnny Boyd and Norman Charles, who called themselves the Royal Kangaroos from Australia. It became pretty obvious early on that Boyd was messing with me, testing me. Occasionally, someone will do that to you—they’ll put you in a hold and cinch down on you, go beyond just working, and see how far they can push you.
It’s not really a smart thing to do to a guy with my background. I didn’t really get all that mad; I knew he was just test ing me. So I “tapped” him—which means I busted him in the face with a legitimate fist. I knocked him to the ground. He decided he didn’t want to test me any more. I guess that means I passed!
That only happened to me that once. Generally, there’s a pretty close camaraderie among wrestlers. They always refer to themselves and each other as the boys. You’re all very dependent upon each other to earn your living. The guys who don’t play fair don’t last very long, with a few unfortunate exceptions.
None of this worried Terry as much as you might think, at least while it was just the two of us. She knew what the life of a wrestler was like before she married me, and she’d volunteered to be part of it. She knew I’d always find a way to come through. But in 1979 we had a new reason to start taking the risks and the drawbacks of a wrestler’s life a good bit more seriously.
His name is Tyrel. Headstrong and independent to this day, Ty showed up about a month earlier than we were expecting him. I was in the delivery room with Terry the whole time on the night he arrived, and the minute the doctors placed him in my arms, he looked up at me and smiled. I’ll never forget it. I named him after one of my favorite Western book characters, Tyrel Sackett from author Louis L’Amour.
Like a lot of preemies, Tyrel was a little on the small side at birth, but within a few months he grew to mammoth proportions. Today, at age nineteen, he’s six foot seven; he towers over most people, including his old man.
He’s been a terrific kid, son, and young man. He’s been through some things that most kids don’t have to experience. When he was four, his sister Jade was born with seizures, and he had to witness the trauma that she went through. It was remarkable how he was able to deal with it all.
One time, Terry and I went to a Bob Dylan concert. Just before Dylan came onstage, we got a call from my mom, who was up at the lake cabin watching Ty and Jade. Jade had just gone into a seizure. My mom was a retired nurse, but when she saw Jade having her seizure, she sought Tyrel for advice. And when they arrived at the hospital, Ty, at age six, told the doctors Jade’s entire history, and recited, calmly and intelligently, the name of every medicine she was on. He absolutely blew the hospital staff away. Tyrel has had to look after his little sister probably more than a kid should have to, but he’s risen to it in a way that’s nothing short of admirable.
He’s got Terry’s slender build and stunning eyes, but Terry’s always saying that Tyrel’s a lot like me. He’s got that Janos independent streak. Once upon a time, I had the same dream for him to go to college that my folks had for me. I tried to pound it into him, but I guess I didn’t pound hard enough. Either that or no amount of pounding would have made a difference. He’s following his own path. He’s a born filmmaker. He’s totally bitten by the film industry. Once I gave him a few hundred dollars to spend however he wanted, and he bought a device that allowed him to lay down film soundtracks. He’ll eventually find his way out to Los Angeles and go to film school.
He’s charting his own course, doing it his way, in the words of Frank Sinatra. I’ve never discouraged him. When I got into my film career, I brought him on set a few times. He was even in a movie with me, an independent sci-fi film I did in Canada called Abraxas. He played a bully. (That’s the great thing about independent films; they’ll hire your relatives.) I got out of the way and let the director work with him. Tyrel’s built his own connections in the film industry. He’s been out to see Joel Schumacher, the director. When it’s time for him to go out there, he’ll have no trouble at all making his way.
From about the time Tyrel was seven until just recently, he and I used to go “patrolling” on the Mississippi River. We’d get camouflaged up, lock and load, and get into our inflatable raft. Terry would drop us off at our insertion point, then pick us up at a prearranged extraction point downstream a few hours later.
Our patrolling ended up causing Terry more than a little bit of
embarrassment. She was waiting for us at the pickup spot one morning when two police officers drove up. They said, “Ma’am, we just got a report of two terroristic-looking individuals going down the river, looking like they’re up to no good. Have you seen them?”
Terry answered sheepishly, “Um, yes, actually, they’re my son and husband. I’m waiting for them.”
The two police officers turned to each other and said, “Ah, it’s just Mr. Ventura again.” I already had a reputation!
I’m pretty sure the incident that launched that reputation was the one that took place one night up in the woods where Terry and I used to live. We had a little house right near a log cabin that Terry’s folks own now. Back then, that cabin was owned by the daughter of my father’s best friend, who rented it out to a bunch of rowdy kids that summer. It was getting toward the end of the season, and the kids were getting ready to leave the next day, so they were having one last big blowout that night.
A bunch of Harley bikers were there, and they were out in the woods partying till all hours. That was fine, but at about three in the morning, they started getting really loud, and they woke me up. I had the kids by then, and I didn’t want them being kept up by all the noise. Plus, I knew that when they were done partying, they were going to fire up the Harleys and roar out of there with a tremendous racket. Now I’m all for a good party, but there’s got to be a limit to everything. And these kids were really starting to push the limit.
So I got out of bed and into my cammies, painted my face, put all my web gear on, pulled out my AR-15 assault weapon, and locked and loaded. As I was headed out the door, Terry woke up and came out, saw how I was dressed, and said, “My God, what are you doing?”
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