WWE Hall Of Famer Leaves Company
A WWE Hall of Famer won’t be returning to television.
Jesse Ventura returned to WWE television at Saturday Night’s Main Event on December 14th, 2024. Ventura, who was synonymous with the event in its 1980s heyday, signed a WWE Legends deal earlier in the year to cement his new relationship with the company.
The veteran continued to appear on the specials into 2025, meaning he held a somewhat regular presence with the company for the first time since the early 1990s.
However, more recently Ventura has disappeared from television and it seems he won’t be back.
Jesse Ventura Leaves WWE
Writing in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer noted that Ventura’s one-year contract has now expired, and he’s no longer working with the company. However, WWE was ready to move away from using the veteran following comments he made on an earlier edition of the specials.
“The other notable thing on the show was no Jesse Ventura, who was brought back for the nostalgia aspect. Nothing has been officially said. We were under the impression he had signed a one-year deal for these shows, and that deal would have run out with the last show.
I don’t know that factually and in checking, the only thing we got was that it was not a major topic of discussion, but after the cage match fiasco performance in the McIntyre vs. Damian Priest match, we were told the die was cast as far as using him going forward. He was downplayed on the next show while still under contract and not on this show, nor ever referenced.
They also didn’t bring in stars from the past or air nostalgia clips.”
The “cage match fiasco” refered to by Meltzer was the Cage Match between Damian Priest and Damian Priest at Saturday Night’s Main Event on May 24, in Tampa, Florida. The match ended when Priest escaped the cage by simply walking out the door, to which Ventura yelled “What kind of BS is that?!”
His comment was edited out of the footage and didn’t appear in any of the recaps aired across social media and YouTube.
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