Jake Roberts Was SCARED Of Snakes! Legendary Promos, Hulk Hogan, DDP, Sobriety

On having many iconic promos:

"Well, there was a lot of them. You just didn’t hear all of them. That interview, that promo [WrestleMania 6] was special, but I don't remember how it all came about. Promos for me, were a game, they were fun. And if anything is fun, you'll spend more time doing it. I like playing with people's minds. I like mixing the words up, finding stuff that works. A lot of guys, maybe after a show, they'll go out and eat or chase skirts or whatever, but not me. I was wherever I was at. I had a pen and paper and I was thinking about doing a promo, writing down ideas. Finally, I had to go to a recorder, because sometimes, man, I'd wake up the next morning and read some of the stuff I'd wrote, and I'm like, Oh my god, what the hell was I thinking about? I couldn't believe what kind of sh*t I wrote down, man. But yeah, I love spending time on promos."

On where the inspiration came from:

"Books, movies, music, all the above. I love Ozzy Osbourne stuff. I love Pink Floyd stuff. I love Rolling Stones, of course. And The Who they had some good stuff."

On sobriety:

"For me, the smell of alcohol turns my stomach. I can walk through an airport blindfolded, and I could tell you where the bars are at, because I can tell that smell and it upsets my stomach now. I'm glad, that's the last damn thing I made is to go down that road again, and I have no fear at all. Maybe that's not healthy not having a fear of it, but I just feel so strongly that's something I'll never do again."

On DDP:

"No doubt in my mind, I've been dead several years ago. Several years ago. That's just where I was going, man, and I was going fast too. No sense of trying to walk into it, Jake, just run down the hill and jump in that."

On not liking snakes:

"I don't like snakes at all. I'm terrified of them. They scare the piss out of me, and you never get used to getting bit. I should have been like Billy the bug, just carry a cockroach around. You know, if I shoved a cockroach in your ear, that would mess with your head, yeah, yeah, especially your ear. Little cockroach dug in there."

Why did you pick the snake in wrestling?

"Because of that, because most people are afraid of snakes. Your parents tell you from the get go, keep away snakes. And that's ingrained in you. It's sort of something that is taught to us from the very beginning, and kids dig it, because mom and dad can't stand it. You know, it makes mama squirm. I love to see your mother squirm. I still love seeing that."

On how many times he has been bitten:

"15-20. Yeah, some of them are pretty nasty. I got one on the inside of my arm here it was 30 It Was a big reticulated Python, he tore the hell out of my arm. Yeah, it's crazy, because they tell you, if you happen to get bit by the snake, whatever you do, don't move. Excuse me? When something bites you, the first thing you do is react, and you react by jerking your arm away. And that's exactly what happened. When you do that it rips your flesh."

Was Andre The Giant actually scared of snakes?

"No, [but] he did a phenomenal job of playing that off. In fact, Damian bit him once and he didn't even know he'd been bitten. He just shrugged it off and kept going. He got back to the locker room, and he was sitting down playing cards, and Rick Rude came up and pulled the two fangs out of his shoulder. Yeah, they're about two inches long, embedded in his shoulder. Man didn't even know it." 

How does it make you feel that the DDT is not used as a finisher?

"Oh, I think it's great. Every time somebody does it. What do people say?" 

That's Jake the Snake’s move?

"That's right, yeah. And if Jake did it, what would happen?" 

They wouldn't be able to kick out?

"That's right. So therefore Jake must be better than that guy."

On not being concerned that he never won a championship:

"Not at all. My god, I'm grateful I did not have to carry that too. You know, I carried a 50 or 60 or 75 pound snake around, and we'd be on the road for two and three weeks at a time, all your clothing, everything you gotta carry, the last thing I want is a 10-pound belt to carry around too. Would I've liked to have had a championship? Yeah, of course. That would have been something, but I had had several championships up until then, maybe not WWF Championship, but I'd had several Calgary, I had it in Louisiana and mid-south. I had it in Texas. I had it in different places around Mid-Atlantic. So I'd had my time with the belts. I mean, it was all right, I would have liked to have had the money that is associated with that belt. But how can I complain about a career that I had."

On the fans screwing him out of a title shot:

"Well, we tried to shoot an angle between Hulk and I, and we did it. Whenever I got back to the curtain, I was told to stand there and wait for the people to start chanting, Hulk, Hulk, Hulk, and they didn't. They started chanting DDT, DDT. Vince looked at me and he goes, you're screwed. That's the end of your angle. We tried to wrestle twice, once in Providence, Rhode Island, and another time in Montreal. And over 50% were chanting DDT and Vince did not want that because that screwed up the marketing. The marketing is where the money is. I'm the bad guy, yeah, you know, but I was the first anti-hero, yeah, no doubt, bad guy that people loved."

What is Jake Roberts grateful for?

"Sobriety, my children and a second chance with my wife."