Retired professional wrestler Jesse Ventura recently appeared on the Piers Morgan Uncensored, where he wasted no time addressing Donald Trump’s induction into the WWE Hall of Fame. Ventura called it a direct result of the president using political influence to end a federal investigation into Vince McMahon.
When Morgan noted that Trump’s Hall of Fame status had angered Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota laid out his position plainly.
“Trump being a Hall of Famer is a tragedy,” Ventura said. “This guy has never been in the ring. I got a good friend, Ken Patera, Olympian, first man to overhead press 500 lb. 25 years in the wrestling business. Kenny Patera is not in the Hall of Fame. Donald Trump does not belong in the Wrestling Hall of Fame. He never earned it.”
Ventura then explained what he believes it takes to earn such a distinction, drawing on his own career.
He said: “You know what I had to do to get in the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame? At one point in my career, I wrestled 63 consecutive nights in a row. That’s how you get in the Hall of Fame.”
He was equally direct about why he believes Trump received the honor. “He’s only in the Hall of Fame because he stopped an investigation against Vince McMahon. A s*xual stuff.”
When a clip from Wrestlemania 20 was played, showing Ventura and Trump together, and Morgan pointed out that Ventura had suggested a wrestler could end up in the White House in 2008, Ventura set the record straight.
He said: “I feel that simply I was doing my job. I was doing what I was asked to do at the WWE. When I was referring to putting a wrestler in the White House, I was talking about me, not him.”
Ventura also challenged Trump to put his Hall of Fame credentials to the test. When Morgan mentioned an upcoming UFC event at the White House, Ventura turned the proposal back on Trump.
He said: “He’s in the Hall of Fame, isn’t he? Even though he’s never ever had a match.” He then laid out a more direct confrontation: “If he wants it, he’s in the Hall of Fame. Let’s both get in the ring.”
When asked whether Trump would accept such a challenge, Ventura was dismissive. “Do you think he’d have the guts to do that? Are you kidding me?”
His take on Trump returned to what he sees as a consistent pattern. “He has no courage. He never has,” Ventura said. “Everybody knows these people. You’re with a group of guys, and there’s always one guy who will start the fig ht and then hold your coat. That’s Donald Trump. He’ll start the fig ht, but he’ll hold your coat. And then the next day, he’ll tell everybody how tough he was.”
Adding context to Ventura’s claim, wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer publicly pushed back on the timeline behind the allegation. Posting on social media, Meltzer argued that the sequence of events alone makes the accusation implausible.
He wrote on Twitter: “I hope everyone who even touches this remark does the minimal work of looking at the timeline of everything because it is, in fact, completely impossible this is the case.”
The timeline he referenced is central to the dispute. Donald Trump was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013, several years before he was first elected president in 2016.
The federal government’s investigation into Vince McMahon did not begin until 2024, after former employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit alleging that McMahon SA’d and trafficked her. Therefore, Ventura’s claim about the Hall of Fame induction being tied to stopping an investigation does not align with the known sequence of events.
