 And it was on this day in 1951, Jesse Ventura, born in Minneapolis. His given name is James Jenos, but he would adopt the Ventura moniker at the start of his professional wrestling career. Running as an anti-establishment candidate with the Reform Party, Ventura's defeat of St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, a Republican and Democrat, State Attorney General Hubert Skip Humphrey III in the 1998 gubernatorial race was, of course, national news.