Jake Roberts Recalls Vince McMahon's Reaction To Randy Savage – Snake Bite Angle
One of the most famous angles of Jake Roberts' career involved his feud with "Macho Man" Randy Savage, which saw Roberts' snake bite Savage in the arm. On a recent episode of the DDP Snake Pit podcast, the AEW manager revealed that the idea came from WWE owner and chairman, and that Randy Savage was paranoid of taking the snake bite.
"Vince comes to me 'you think that snake can bite somebody?'" Roberts recalled. "'Yeah, it bites me all the time.' He's like 'okay. We're going to have it bite Macho.' I'm like 'hell yeah.' You know, because we've not done that yet. Macho comes to me and he's like 'hey brother, we're going to do this thing right?' And I'm like 'yeah it's going to be so good, right?' 'Let me ask you something, are you sure that snake's been fixed?' 'Like, fixed? Yeah, they took the venom sacks out.' 'Well maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Stranger things have happened. So here's what we're going to do, Jake. You've got to let the snake bite you first. Yeah, let the snake bite you first. And if you don't want it to bite you, me and you've got a big problem and we're going to have to settle it right now.' I'm sitting there in my seat like 'you're killing my buzz, dude.'
"I said 'fine whatever, whatever man.' 'Whatever, whatever we're gonna be sure, I'm not gonna bulls**t, you know. A lot of people want this title.' Jesus, Randy. So I had to get the cobra out, I pulled up my pant leg, and boom, it bites me. They lock it, so he holds on, he's chewing, I take him off and Randy's like, 'okay don't you dare move, don't take any antidote, don't take any vitamins, don't take any pills, don't drink any antidote.' You know? And he sits there in a chair face to face with me, not that far away. 'How you feeling, man? Are you starting to sweat?' 'Man, what's wrong with you?' He goes 'I'm just waiting, man, how long has it been?' 'I've done this long enough.' He goes 'no, no, no, you sit right there. I want to make sure.' So he wouldn't let me leave the room for 20 minutes. Waiting to see if I was going to show any reactions or something, or reach for something. Finally, he's like, 'okay, that'll work.'"
Jake Roberts then detailed the angle itself, which saw Savage get bitten by the snake in the ring. According to Jake Roberts, the segment lasted so long, with Roberts unable to get the snake off Savage, that Roddy Piper was forced to leave the announcer's table to ask Roberts to get the snake off him.
"He goes 'hey brother, when that thing bites me and he lets go, bring him back to me and ask me because I may want you to hook me again. Because I want this thing to really be really good,'" Roberts said of Savage. "Like, no problem, bro. So we get in the ring, I'm still a little pissed off, rightfully so. I turn my back to Randy and I've got this cobra in my hand and I slap the piss out of him. His mouth flies out, he's ready to bite someone for just getting the crapped knocked out of him. So when I turn to Randy and he locks on, he locked on and I'm like watching. Waiting, taking a couple of pictures for the people, waving at a few fans. He's still chewing. I reach, I grab him by the tail, I pull and I pull, and he won't let go. Holy crap. So I pull again and he won't let go. So by that time, the people are getting really quiet. When fans get quiet, that's dangerous, because somebody's fixing to bust out and come up there. So Vince sends Piper to the ring to tell me to get the snake off Randy. Piper's deathly afraid of snakes. I am too, but Piper doesn't have the gimmick. Piper's like 15 feet away from the ring 'Vince said get the snake off of him.'"
Jake Roberts also revealed that Vince McMahon loved the angle, while Savage was concerned about what the bite had done to him.
"Vince loved it." Roberts said. '"Oh my God! Oh my God!' You know, he loved it. Randy was like 'damn brother, who let you, what the hell man?' Because you have to understand Randy, he thinks everybody was out to get him. You know, it was just the way he was wired and oh my God, he always thought everybody wanted his spot. I'm not like that, never have been. But there are guys who do some stupid stuff. But no, he's just afraid to open the door because he doesn't know what your intentions are. He was freaking out because he was bleeding. He was sure it was going to kill him. He worried himself into an infection."
To quote this article, please credit DDP Snake Pit and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription