On a recent edition of his “The Snake Pit” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jake Roberts shared his journey of breaking into the pro wrestling business.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On whether he thought he would follow his father’s footsteps into wrestling: “Absolutely not. Well you gotta’ understand, as a kid I blamed wrestling for keeping my father away from me. Because he was never around me, and you know, I thought because of wrestling, that’s the reason he couldn’t see me. So I hated wrestling. And I was prior to seeing him getting hurt, you know. Because he worked as kids to the bone. He really played it up, all the ring injuries he would have, he would play him out at home on us.”
On deciding to become a wrestler: “Well, I went down to see my father in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to tell him I graduated from high school. So I went down to see him, and I told him I graduated. And he’s like, ‘Well, I’m happy you did that.’ You know, and just kind of blew me off. I said ‘Well, I’m gonna go to college and become an architect.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I hope you don’t need anything for me because I don’t have anything to give you.’ I’m like, ‘Wow. Thanks for the help, Dad.’ You know, I was the first kid in my family to ever graduate from high school. And did so with great grades.
“So I was hurt, I was angry. And we went to a wrestling show and youth, ignorance and alcohol got involved. And after about six or seven beers, it came to my mind that if I wanted my dad to be proud of me, I needed to go get a ring and beat up somebody. That just made all the sense in the world to me. And I wasn’t afraid of nothing. So I went to the ringside, and I beat on the mat. I challenged this guy named Billy ‘Bad Boy’ Heinz, and got in the ring with him, and he stressed the s*it out of me. He had me crying; he had me pi*sing on myself. You know, I’m lucky he knew who I was, because he could hurt me really bad. But he stressed the hell out of me for about 15 minutes, man. Had me crying, you know, crying for mama, everything, man. Oh, it was horrible, to the point that I had to crawl out of the ring. I couldn’t get up.
On his dad’s reaction: “I crawl back to the locker room. And my father was standing there, and he looked down at me, and he goes, ‘I’m ashamed of you. You’re gutless, and you’ll never amount to anything.’ Wow. That was hard to take. And I remember that night laying in bed, man. And so upset, so angry. And that’s where I made the decision I was going to be a wrestler. Because I was going to be a wrestler who was better than my father, no matter the size difference. Because you know, he was seven foot and weighed 425 pounds. But I made up my mind that no matter what, I didn’t care what I had to. If it was cheating, okay, I’ll do it. If it was stealing, okay, I’ll do it. I made a deal with the devil that night. And after that the next day I started trying to see if I could get involved. Because my father didn’t want me to be a wrestler.”
