Backstage Reaction To Jesse Ventura's Off-Script SNME Cage Match Rant Revealed (WWE News)
How WWE reacted to Jesse Ventura's Saturday Night's Main Event cage match rant.
Jesse Ventura's unplanned rant at WWE's cage match rules during the 24 May Saturday Night's Main Event promoted "lots of laughs" backstage, reports Fightful Select.
The WWE Hall of Famer sounded genuinely aghast when, during Saturday Night's Main Event, Damian Priest left the steel cage to win his grudge match with Drew McIntyre.
“Wait a minute! How do you win it going out the door?” asked 'The Body'. When Michael Cole tried to explain that walking out of the cage is a win condition in WWE, Ventura responded: “I thought you had to go over the top? What kind of B.S. is that? He can walk out the door?”
Jesse Ventura is irate because he didn’t know that a competitor can walk out of the steel cage door to win the match.
“what kind of BS is that?” ??#SNME pic.twitter.com/RNNIQkY3hr
— PW Chronicle (@_PWChronicle) May 25, 2025
Ventura continued going off on the finish as Priest made his way back up the ramp, with Cole and colour commentator Pat McAfee attempting damage control by reiterating the rules.
WWE brought Ventura back for Saturday Night's Main Event's December 2024 relaunch. It was the first time the 73-year-old had been used by WWE in 15 years, having last featured at TLC 2019, and represented a key tenet of SNME's retro feel, as Jesse sat alongside Vince McMahon in WWE's announce booth for much of the brand's original run.
A WWE Hall of Fame inductee in 2004, Ventura found considerable success as a heel wrestler in the '70s and '80s, before taking his vocal talents to the booth, becoming a legendary WWE color commentator. His partnership with the late, great Gorilla Monsoon is held to particularly high esteem, with the duo calling many of the '80s most iconic wrestling moments.