Before entering pro wrestling, Ventura was a member of the Navy SEALs, an elite corps of underwater demolition experts. Becoming a SEAL required an extensive twenty-two-week training program. Ventura said, "I was in the best physical condition of my life," (Hunter 60).

After his honorable discharge from the Navy, Ventura discovered bodybuilding, rode with an outlaw motorcycle club, and attended college. Then he decided to try pro wrestling. "Surfer" Jesse Ventura made his debut in Kansas City, and soon competed in Oregon and Hawaii. But it wasn't until Jesse "The Body" Ventura began wrestling in the American Wrestling Association that the wrestling world began to really take notice. Two years later, Jesse arrived in the World Wrestling Federation, then returned to the AWA, where he first wrestled Hu

Jesse Ventura was actually named James George Janos when he was born on July 15,1951. His friends and family called him Jim. His father, George, was the grandson of immigrants from Slovakia, in east central Europe. George had worked as a laborer with the Minneapolis street department. Jim's mother, Bernice, had come from Iowa. She worked her way through college and became a nurse. George and Bernice met in Minneapolis in 1945, and they married a year later. Both Bernice and George had served in the United States military during World War II; Bernice was a lieutenant, working as a nurse in North Africa. George fought in Europe, but he kept his war stories to himself. Jim said, "I never had any idea...that he had seven bronze battle stars," of his dad's war career. "He never spoke of it, and I was his son." (Ventura 12). But George did voice strong opinions about politics. Jim loved arguing with his father about politics. His older brother, Jan, recalled later, "For Jim, I'm thinking, that's when he first got interested in politics. It must have rubbed off on him." (Greenberg 14).

After leaving the Navy in 1973, Jim stayed in California, unsure about what to do next. For a while, he joined a motorcycle club called the Mongols. After Jim left the "outlaw" group, he enrolled at North Hennepin Community College, a two-year school. There he got involved drama and football. In 1974, Jim got a job as a bouncer at a bar called The Rusty Nail. That's where he met a pretty, dark-haired girl named Teresa (or Terry) Masters. They dated for about a year. Then, on July 18, 1975, when Jim was twenty-four and Terry was nineteen. By then, Jim was already planning to become a professional wrestler. Jim and his brother Jan went to the Minneapolis Auditorium for a wrestling show. There he first saw the man who would become his ideal and inspiration, "Superstar" Billy Graham. After that, he decided to pay a visit to Eddie Sharkey, a legend in the wrestling business because he had trained so many top stars. Fortunately for Jim, Sharkey's gym happened to be in Minneapolis. For seven months, Jim trained to become a professional wrestler.

He promised Minnesota's citizens that he'd be "a truth-telling, non-career politician serving you in the Capitol. Imagine that...a governor who cares about people, tells the truth, has no obligation to the big money power brokers, and goes not want or need to spend the rest of his life in politics." (Greenberg 63.) When people started questioning a wrestler being governor, Jesse simply said, "Why can't a wrestler be governor? That's what our country was founded upon."

After his daughter, Jade, was born in 1983, Jesse left the AWA rings for the East Coast based WWF. Jesse loved being a celebrity and the WWF gave him that chance every night. The owner of the WWF, Vince McMahon, Jr., was slowly building up public interest in Jesse the Body and preparing him for a major feud with WWF champ Hulk Hogan. This was going to be the highlight of Jesse's wrestling career. But the week he was supposed to challenge Hogan for the championship in Los Angeles in 1985, Jesse developed blood clots in one of his lungs. For several frightening days, he lay helpless in the hospital until doctors were finally able to dissolve the clots. After this Jesse questioned his career. Fortunately, Vince McMahon was well aware of Jesse's talents behind the microphone. He pulled Jesse out of physically demanding work of wrestling and gave him a job hosting a segment of a WWF television show called The Body Shop. During matches, Jesse provided colorful commentary, frequently sitting alongside McMahon and teasing him with hilarious one-liners. Fans who watched WWF shows in the mid-1980s still remember some of Jesse's famous lines. One such line was, "It ain't cheating unless you get caught."

After he left the wrestling business, "Mr. Body" went to Hollywood. He appeared in his first film, Preda

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3099
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)