On a recent edition of his “The Snake Pit” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jake Roberts discussed signing with WWE, his first meeting with Vince McMahon, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On whether he was confident he could go to WWE after leaving Mid-Atlantic: “Yeah, I was. I was real confident with that. Because I’ve been asked before to go there, you know? And I turned him down. That wasn’t real smart. No, whenever they took over Georgia Championship Wrestling, they wanted me to stay with them. And I didn’t. I went to f**kin’ Von Erich territory! Oh my God.”
On his meeting with Vince about working full-time: “Blackjack Lanza came in, and then left. Pat Patterson came in and left, and then it was just Vince and I. And he sat there and told me they had an idea for me. And I’m like, ‘What’s the idea?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, we’re gonna dress you up and neon green or purple tights.’ And I’m like, ‘Tights? I don’t do tights, man. If you’ve watched me, you see what I wear. The karate pads with slip-on boots.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, that’s not what we’re doing. We got a spot, where they’ll wear purple tights or lime green, wear knee-high snakeskin boots.’ And I’m thinking ‘Knee-high snakeskin boots? How long is that gonna take to lace them f**king things up?’ I’m like, ‘Hell no!’ in my mind. And he’s like, ‘And carries a snake,’ but at the same time, he’s writing down some numbers on a piece of paper. And he slides that over to me, and it says ‘a million dollars’ on it.
“And I just went, looked at that million dollars and went, ‘F**k yeah, I’ll look great in lime green man, no problem. Knee-high boots, hell, that’ll probably give me more support on my ankles later. The older I get, it’ll probably a good thing for me. Yeah, great idea, man, great idea. Carry a snake, no f**king problem, man.’ I didn’t care what it was. When somebody throws a million dollars in your face, you’re gonna do something, brother. If you’ve never had a chance to break out and break out on top, this was my opportunity to rise to the top. And I’m gonna do it better than anybody could do it. Because my mind, hell, I was Jake the Snake for years. I’ve already incorporated snake moves and s**t in my gimmick. This was gonna be easy.”
On whether he was concerned McMahon would hurt his gimmick: “No, not at the time. You know, I’ve always believed, you can dress me up and pink or polka dots. Remember, somebody doing polka dots? It didn’t destroy them, brother; he got it over. And that’s the thing with me; my s**t is so tight, you can’t see through it. You know, whatever I do, people believe it. And as long as I kept that going, I wasn’t worried about hurting the character or any of that s**t. Because I knew as long as I went out there and worked my style, nobody could hurt it.”
