Call Him ‘The Body’--or Mr. Mayor

With one slight twist, Jesse (The Body) Ventura is the consummate superhero jock: a gum-chewing, action-movie actor and ex-pro wrestler. He is also the $10,500-a-year mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minn.

Since retiring from the ring in 1984, Ventura has marketed his 6-foot-4 frame, clefted chin and deep voice into acting gigs in “Predator,” “The Running Man” and the new release “Ricochet.”

Ventura also offers color commentary in “The Grudge Match,” a new syndicated show airing at 12:30 a.m. Sunday on KABC-TV Channel 7.

In one match, buddies quarreling over who got stuck with the ugly date one evening climb into the ring and throw punches from oversized boxing gloves and cream pies. When it’s all over, Ventura saunters over in a black tuxedo and his signature black bandanna and says: “Well, Michael, you lost in the bar when you lost the girl. Unfortunately you lost here on ‘The Grudge Match.’ My sympathy goes out for you, but is any girl really worth this?”

“The show’s basic mindless entertainment, which is what the world needs more of,” Ventura says. “It’s enjoyable because it allows people to vent their frustrations.”

Of course when he’s not working in Hollywood, Ventura plays mayor in Brooklyn Park, a Minneapolis suburb with a population of 57,000. As if living out one of his good-versus-evil movie plots, Ventura won the 1990 election in part by pledging to stand up to the “Good Old Bunch.” That’s his term for some city council members he thinks are too cozy with developers.

The Minneapolis native lives with his wife and kids in one of Brooklyn Park’s oldest neighborhoods on a bank of the Mississippi River. “There’s nothing more fun than taking that fishing line, putting corn on it and fishing for carp,” Ventura says.