Jake "The Snake" Roberts Discusses Working With Savage, 'Taker, Warrior Costing Him Money, More

Raj Giri of WrestlingINC.com recently interviewed legendary Superstar Jake "The Snake" Roberts, where he strictly discussed his first WWF run. In the second and final part of our interview below, Roberts discussed his favorite opponents during that era, working with Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior being fired before their feud and more.

Click here for part one of the interview, where Roberts discusses signing with WWE, the "Snake" gimmick, hating snakes, working his first WrestleMania and more.

WrestlingINC: You looked like you were getting ready to feud with Hulk Hogan and you did the DDT on him and the fans were chanting 'DDT.' This was when Hogan was at his peak of his popularity. Was that the reason you became a babyface?

Jake Roberts: The angle was stopped because the people were chanting DDT and Vince did not want that. That's when they really took me from being a heel to being a babyface and my job then became getting all the other heels ready to wrestle Hogan. So, I guess they thought, 'If we can't use him as a heel, we'll just beat him as a babyface.' But, it didn't matter. If you're good enough and you go out there and you do your job, people don't remember if you won or lost. They really don't. They just want to be entertained.

WrestlingINC: You then had a short feud with Randy Savage. What are some of your memories of working with him?

Roberts: With Randy? He's a psychotic son of a b—h, man. He was nuts. I love Randy to death but he was a psycho. You had to ground him. What I'd do is I'd go out and lean on him during the early part of the match until he got tired. Then, once he got tired, he was much more sensible in terms of what we were doing.

WrestlingINC: You also feuded with The Honky Tonk Man and so many great moments. What were some of your favorite moments from that era?

Roberts: The Andre thing was right up there at the top. Honky Tonk was fun because of Alice Cooper. WrestleMania III of course. But, doing the thing with Andre, man, it just blew me away. To be wrestling Andre The Giant, I'd never of thought that would have happened in my wildest dreams. It was just really spectacular, you know?

That and doing the thing with Earthquake. Doing the thing with Rick Rude, even though Rick Rude told me that my wife hit harder than I did. That kind of pissed me off. She did kind of cup his ear and pop his eardrum for him. What the hell, it was a lucky shot. [Laughs.]

WrestlingINC: With the feud with Andre, everybody always says that if he liked you, he was great to work with....

Roberts: And if he didn't, he would make you freaking miserable. ... It was a very, very very pleasant experience. We had a little rough road at first. Basically, he had a match in Los Angeles and he just guzzled me the whole match. Everything I tried, he blocked it. Just freaking guzzled me for 20 minutes and I was furious. I came back to the locker room and I just started yelling at him. 'What the f–k you doing out there, man? We ain't going to make any money with you doing that s–t? That's bulls–t! You guzzled me, man, you didn't give me a damn thing. We're not going to make a damn dime and I just don't want to work with you if you're going to be like that, man. Screw you.'

He looked at me and he told me to sit down. I don't know why I did because he could have reached over and he could have killed me. He said, 'Now, we don't have a problem. I just wanted to see.' Basically, he wanted to see if I would man up. Once I manned up, man, what a cake up. I mean, he still brutalized me out there but he was just having fun doing it. You know? It's different then. Whether it be him standing on my hair and grabbing my arm and I can hear my hair popping like piano strings or him sitting on me and farting on me, which was a horrible experience. I did not realize how long a Giant could fart. So, it was like 25 seconds of just brutal gas. There's something about vodka and wine with not much food that really gives a man a nasty potion to inhale.

I know I thought I had a birth mark on my arm but it was just a wine stain from his ass. [Laughs.] He could do some stuff to you out there, man. His strength was just incredible, it was unbelievable. But, I loved the man, I loved working with him. We had a great time.

WrestlingINC: Later on, in the early 1990's, you turned hell again and had feuds with Randy Savage and Ultimate Warrior. Was turning heel something you wanted to do?

Roberts: Yeah, I was young and you just wanted to make money. I actually liked being a heel better, anyway. Doing the turn and the Ultimate Jackoff — I mean the Ultimate Warrior — screwing it up and then getting fired cost me a lot of damn money, man. It really, really did. I was going to get that run with the champ. I mean, he made you buckets full of money. That's just the way it was. So, that got screwed up.

Then, I started with with Randy and, again, working with Randy is like working with a psycho every night. You never know what page he's going to be on. There were some problems because of having Liz get on her knees and beg and all that s–t. His in-laws were not smart to the business. So, they took what I did to her very personal. You know, slapping her and all that crap. They became very angry with Randy and told him not to ever come back to their house again. That he wasn't welcomed. They were calling him and calling him a piece of s–t and everything else. 'You let this girl be treated like that? How dare you let our little girl get treated like that. You said you'd always protect her. You scumbag.' You know, they really went off on the guy.

WrestlingINC: Really?

Roberts: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, the angle was cut short because he had to get even with me much sooner than need to be. It should have been a much longer feud. But, he had to get even with me and beat me because of what he was doing at home.

WrestlingINC: Was there any heat between you and Randy because of the in-laws? I mean, that was all basically scripted to play out that way.

Roberts: Sure, it was. I was upset about it. But, what the hell? It was done, it was done. I wasn't worried about it.

WrestlingINC: You mentioned the Ultimate Warrior leaving. He was another guy that a lot of guys say was difficult to work with. It sounded like you were looking forward to working a program with him.

Roberts: I was looking forward to making the son of a b—h miserable. You've got to learn how to do it. You know? You take a juice monkey, you lean on him. You make him toss you around the ring but every time he picks you up, you get a little bit heavier. Pretty soon, they're blowing and going and they don't have any air left and you can pretty much do anything you want to them. They're like a little baby. You can roll them around the ring, pick your nose and put boogers on the back of their head. They don't give a s–t because they're so blown up.

You've just got to know how to do that and I know how to do that. I am a snake.

WrestlingINC: [Laughs.] Yeah, so that never worked out. I know we're almost out of time, but I wanted to ask you about working with The Undertaker early in his career. Was he somebody that you enjoyed working with?

Roberts: It was fun working with him. I mean, he rode around with me for several months and I'd already gotten in his head. We'd already talked a lot. I tried to help him as much as I could. Mark's a wonderful guy. And what do you say about Percy Pringle except he's the most handsome man in the world. [Laughs.] Paul Bearer is just a good looking man, that's all you can say. He's the Frank Sinatra of wrestling. [Laughs.]

WrestlingINC: Thanks a lot Jake, I appreciate you taking the time to speak to us.

Click here for part one of the interview, where Roberts discusses signing with WWE, the "Snake" gimmick, hating snakes, working his first WrestleMania and more.