Slamming the Body Politic

Closet revolutionaries everywhere rejoiced this week over the election that could not have happened--the ascension of onetime professional wrestler Jesse “the Body” Ventura to the governorship of the purportedly sober state of Minnesota.

Delight over the upset burned nowhere more brightly than in the gyms of Venice. It was here, along Muscle Row, that a Midwestern football player named James Janos completed his transformation into the glittering, mesomorphic, trash-talking ring virtuoso.

And it was here--at Gold’s Gym and World Gym--that the triumph of “the Bod” was all the talk: by men like Steve “the California Terminator” Strong, who once partnered with Ventura on a championship tag team; by men like Jack “Wildman” Armstrong, who had the honor of being “suplexed” into submission in Ventura’s final California match; by men like Irvin Koszewski, a.k.a. “Jungle Boy Zebo,” a wrestling pioneer who paved the way for the current governor of Minnesota.

Oh, the affirmation! Oh, the joyous, subversive afterglow!

At World Gym, Strong was still beaming at week’s end over the victory of his onetime ring mate.

“I wouldn’t think this would be the end at all,” said Strong. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him go all the way,” he said, adding in a conspiratorial whisper: “For the Big Potato.”

That’s right, fans, the man is talking about the White House.

But can Ventura, the 47-year-old political neophyte from Ross Perot’s Reform Party, survive the rough and tumble of a Minnesota statehouse that is divided between a Democratic Senate and a Republican House?

What, are you kidding? says Strong. That’s not pressure.

“Pressure is when the promoter comes over at the end of a match and says you’ve got to wrestle the Mad Beast tomorrow night at the Maui Auditorium,” Strong says. “And you have 2 1/2 minutes you have to talk--on live TV!--to promote the match.

“You had to come up with things right then and there,” said Strong, now a night manager at World Gym. “You had to do it right. If you weren’t on your toes, you wouldn’t be drawing the people.”

And, talk about innovation?

These guys were wearing sequined tights--and Ventura, a feather boa--when a high school basketball player named Dennis Rodman was still cinching up his high white gym socks.

Strong should know. He was paired with Ventura in the late 1970s, when both were up and comers with such similar looks that they had to be a tag team--both 6-foot-4, both about 250 pounds, both with 20-inch biceps, both blond. Strong surfed. Ventura was a star high school swimmer.

They moved to Hawaii, where the blond pretty boys became the perfect foils for a series of teams, often less coiffed and more ethnic. The golden boys were usually the villains.

They were living high, welcomed as guests of honor at luaus and selling out the biggest arenas in Honolulu. But Ventura was more than just a muscle man, his friend recalls. He was uncommonly interested in current events--always the first to grab a newspaper or turn on the news. And he always stayed on the straight and narrow. Ventura was one of the few wrestlers who took his spouse on the road. “He was clean, all right,” said Strong, 49. “Scary clean.”

Armstrong, the red-haired “Wildman,” met Ventura a few years later, in Los Angeles. Elated at his old foe’s election, Armstrong recalled in detail the pair’s match at the Los Angeles Sports Arena near the end of Ventura’s career.

“He was a bad guy, yeah. But I was so bad that he became good, you know what I mean?” Armstrong cackled, exchanging a high-five with a photographer. “How do you like that?”

That match ended when Ventura held Armstrong high overhead and then slammed him--falling-tree style--to the canvas.

“There are two things you can say about Jesse,” added Armstrong, now a personal trainer and occasional actor. “Now write this down. Write this down! One, he gave the people what they wanted in wrestling and two, he’ll give the people what they want in politics.”

But what sorts of policies will a former “muscle head” bring to politics?

“I don’t have any idea,” said Armstrong, 51. “But I know this. He will become the most popular governor in the United States. And--write this down!--He will become a commentator for WWF or WCW [the World Wrestling Federation or the rival World Championship Wrestling]. And--you ready for this?--he’ll be getting like $1 million a pop!”

More laughter came surging out, from deep in the Wildman’s chest. Until he caught his breath and summed it all up.

“Is this a great country?” he said. “I tell ya!”