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How Jesse Ventura Revolutionized Wrestling Commentary

SI.com’s Week in Wrestling is published every week and provides beneath-the-surface coverage of the business of pro wrestling.

Jesse Ventura: “No one had ever heard a heel before on the microphone”

Decades have passed, but Jesse Ventura still vividly recalls the beginning of his famed tenure on the World Wrestling Federation broadcast team.

Long before he was a political pundit, television host or the governor of Minnesota, Ventura was a proud and true pro wrestler. Known across the territories as Jesse “The Great” Ventura, he reached a new level of notoriety in the AWA as Jesse “The Body” Ventura.