Jake Roberts Talks Steve Austin's "Austin 3:16" King Of The Ring Promo, If It Offended Him
Jake Roberts spoke with the Milwaukee Record on working with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and if having his cobra bite a wrestler would work in today's pro wrestling. Here are some of the highlights:
Working with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and his famous "Austin 3:16" promo at King of the Ring in 1996:
"It was important for me because Steve had came to the WWF and, you know, he was kind of treated poorly a couple of other places and not been given the shot. You know, to make himself known, really. You know, he was Stunning Steve for awhile and he was with DiBiase as the Ringmaster. And I was writing television at the time for Vince [McMahon] and I told Vince, 'That's your guy right there' and he's like 'Are you kidding? No way, Jake. That guy is middle of the card.' And I'm like, 'Really?'
"From that point on, I started getting with Steve every night. If I wasn't in the same town with him, he would call me. I'd go over his match. I'd go over and talk to him about doing different things, and saying different things, and creating, and we put it together. He just had to be himself, basically. That was the problem. They let him be himself and he became Steve Austin. The Austin 3:16 thing, everyone was like, 'Oh, that must have really upset you.' Are you kidding me? You know how many people opened the Bible just to check that out who had never even opened a bible before, you know? Yeah, I've got my relationship with God. He knows where I'm going, I don't, but he does. So that didn't offend me at all.
"The only thing that kind of upset me is they didn't put the money maker out there which would've been Austin's 10 commandments. You know: Thou shall not kill unless thou are pissed. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife unless she's really hot. Thou shall honor thy mother and father unless they're jerks. You know, right on down the line. You could've had a lot of fun with that. That would've been a great seller, no doubt. Steve Austin, that was a? you know, a lot of guys can help themselves in this business. But to me, the people that mean the most are guys that can help everybody, and that's what I prided myself on. And that was my job in the WWF."
Talking about his cobra biting "Macho Man" Randy Savage and if that would work in today's wrestling:
"I could still do it. Yeah, I could still do it. That's the problem today. Nobody can do much of anything because guys aren't allowed to be their own characters. You know, when you have people writing television that also write the interviews, it doesn't work because that person cannot put out there what this guy would say. They don't know him from inside and out.
"That's one thing that we had with this group here is that we did our own interviews, man, and we were able to get our characters out there. You can't get a character out if you're having five or six different people write interviews for you. It just doesn't work. They should see that and move on, but they can't take the time to teach all these guys how to do interviews. You know, or write interviews. I never wrote an interview in my life, but when that camera came on, I was able to do one."
Roberts also discussed his live show and his The Resurrection of Jake the Snake documentary. You can check out the full interview by clicking here.