Jake “The Snake” Roberts recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet at the Independent Wrestling Expo. During the interview, Roberts reflected on his work with All Elite Wresting, his lack of a championship in WWE, and more. Here are some highlights:
On how working with Lance Archer came about:
Roberts: “A phone call, man. They came with the idea and they asked me if I’d be interested, and I said ‘Well, sure.’ And they wanted me for ten weeks, and after that ten weeks was up, they just said, ‘Please stay.’ Okay. You know, and it was just great timing because had the virus not been going on, I’d have been out doing my shows all the time and I wouldn’t have had time to do them. Now it’s worked out to where I can do both.
On how wrestling is different today:
Roberts: “The talent today, they don’t know how to get over. And they don’t know, wrestling today is all for visual, you know. In my day, it wasn’t. It was through the heart, it was emotional. I wanted to hook you up emotionally and the difference is visual lasts a split second, then the brain wants something fresh. But emotionally, if I hook you one time, I’ve got you for the rest of your life because you’ll always go to that moment.”
On the advice he gives on promos:
Roberts: “Once you destroy your own credibility, you cannot get that back. I tell guys less is more because if you do things absolutely perfect, the fans will get behind you. But if it’s a little bit off, you’re just another phony and you don’t come back. You destroy your own credibility.”
On not winning any titles in WWE:
Roberts: “No, I never needed one, man. And why would I wanna carry a ten-pound belt around too? I got a hundred-pound snake, got a trunk I gotta carry it in, and I got my wrestling gear and my clothes, I can’t carry nothing else. Some guys need to have a title, just to make them a star. I was already a star. I didn’t need a title to make my name. I did my s— in the ring.”
On working with a snake all the time:
Roberts: “I always expected [everything] not to be fine. That way, when it was, it was like oh okay, that’s great. I got bit a lot of times. Other people got bit.
On a getting bitten badly by one of his snakes:
Roberts: “That snake committed suicide. He did. I got to the back, and I was bleeding everywhere, man, because it got that vein. Every time my heart would beat, it’d shoot about twenty feet. And I picked the snake up and man, I don’t know, he overpowered me or something, but he just dove at the wall with his head, and I pulled him back and he did it again. And I pulled him back and it did it again.”
The full video is available here:
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