I’ve been a wrestling fan for probably 25 years now. I’ve watched the WWF, WWE, NWA, WCW, ECW and a whole bunch of others that are too crappy to mention (GLOW anyone???). One of my all-time favorite wrestlers is Jake “The Snake” Roberts. He was never the biggest or baddest in the ring and he never won a major title (at least that I can remember). But he was the best damn performer that I can ever remember. He could draw you into a match and really make you hate him (or love him depending on who his foe was). I can still remember some incredible matches with Randy Savage where Jake was playing the heal. I remember awesome times where he’d DDT his oponent and drape his “pet” Damien over their prone body. For the non-wrestling fans out there, Damien was a 12 foot python that Jake would bring into the ring with him.
Jake like many wrestlers has demons — plenty of them. He’s battled drug addiction, depression and a whole slew of other shit. This recent story though takes the cake. At a local wrestling show near Cleveland he was visually hammered. He could barely get through the match. His opponent called for the end of the match and then took the mic and said, “I’ve wrestled drug addicts…you are a piece of shit. You screwed over these people. Fuck you!”
This is bad folks. Most of the time, the wrestling “fraternity” will take care of stuff like this internally. The fact that a wrestler is calling out another publicly over the PA system shows just how bad this situation really is.
You can read the full gory details (and see the video) here: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/article1696887.ece
If you’d like some more background on Jake check out his Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Roberts
Personally, I’m going to remember Jake as “The Snake” from the WWF days. It’s too bad that stuff like this has to happen to a legend. RIP Jake… you’ll be missed.
