Back in 1991, Jesse Ventura faced off against Vince McMahon in court over royalties.
During a recent appearance on the “Talk is Jericho” podcast, Ventura recalled the time he caught McMahon lying over paying out royalties, bringing in an agent to negotiate with Vince, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On bringing an agent in to negotiate with McMahon: “Every year, my agent would bring up videotape, and every year, Vince would say, ‘We don’t pay royalties on videotape,’ which the WWF (or E as it is today), they have that right. There’s no law, but it still ticked me off to the point I was so angry, I said, ‘I want him to beat me in court on this.’ Because it just don’t seem right — I own the copyright of my name and likeness, he’s making money off it and not paying me a thing for all that he’s making.”
On McMahon lying about royalties paid to other names: “If you decide you want to hire me tomorrow to bring me into wrestling, into your group, you and I are going to sit down and we’re going to do a negotiation, right? Well, during this negotiation, I am to expect that everything Chris Jericho tells me is the truth, and if Chris Jericho lies to me about something in these face-to-face negotiations, that is quantum merit. That is an argument for the term where you can be victorious in court, you were lied to during the negotiations.
“Well, during discovery, we found out that Vince was lying when he said nobody gets paid for videotapes. Hogan was getting paid, Mr. T was getting paid, Cyndi Lauper was getting paid, all the people from the outside entertainment world were getting videotape royalties from the WWE. The only people not getting it were the wrestlers.”
On wanting to follow up on the situation now that the Network is on Peacock: “I’m looking at it again now because it’s now no longer in the house. See, he was allowed to use my broadcast cause they were in the house: WWE. He has now sold that for money. I should have been paid some royalties.”
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