During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts commented on his frustration with today’s pro wrestling industry. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On his frustration with the lack of originality in today’s matches: “That’s what I don’t get about the young talent today,. So many matches are the same. Don’t they get bored? It’s ridiculous what they waste, and they don’t even know they’re wasting it. I blame that on the new way of wrestling; if you come up now, you can be in the main event within a year. In my day, you had to learn. We had the territories that forced us to constantly grow and change. Another problem is this, everybody wants to get to the top and they have no problem sacrificing their life to do it. It doesn’t take a great wrestler to jump off the top of a cage. How many times can you do that before you miss? How many times can you do that before you’re crippled? Longevity is a key to success.”
On matches being defined by effectiveness of moves used: “I had six moves. I knew when to do them and I did them absolutely perfectly, and people believed them. Teaching this class, I’m going to make people think differently. The truth is in what you’ve done and where you’ve been, and there are not many people who have done more than I have.”
On his brief feud with Hulk Hogan in 1986: “Vince had spent millions and millions of dollars to make this animal and have all this product ready to sell on Hogan. They weren’t going to waste money. So when the people started cheering me over Hogan, they said, ‘Oh hell no, we can’t have that.’ They turned me babyface and started beating me every night, and that didn’t matter to me because winning and losing don’t mean a damn thing. It’s a damn phony business, for crying out loud. You’ve got to entice the people and get over with your character. If this all depends on wins and losses, then only the Samoans will be left because they’ll beat everyone and everybody else will quit the business.”
