[1991-11-27-WWF-Survivor Series] Interview: Jake Roberts

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Only Jake could wear that sweater and still seem like a badass. They talk about now reptiles not being allowed at ringside. I love Jake's response to this. "I've always been the snake you should worry about."

[BackToBionic]

Gene: "You are a sick man Jake Roberts!"

Jake: "Thank you very much"

[Kevin Ridge]

Roberts calls the snake attack on Savage to be an accident. The plug the upcoming PPV as there is a singles match with Savage and Roberts. No snakes allowed ringside. Great response from Roberts on comment from Okerlund about being a sick man. Jake makes threats towards Elizabeth. That’s not going to set well with Savage.

[PeteF3]

"You're trying to cast me as the Original Sinner. Well, I spoke to God this morning, and He said He doesn't like YOU."

 

Jake really is incredible. That line is pilfered from Ozzy Osbourne but Roberts was a master at swiping lyrics or lines of poetry and incorporating them organically into promos, providing twisted logic for why he does what he does. Savage has been reinstated so he can get a match at Jake...Tuesday in Texas, in what was truly a bullshit bait-and-switch tactic.

[soup23]

Survivor Series takes another hit as they are pushing Tuesday in Texas Jake vs. Macho now on this PPV. Do we ever know exactly why they did two PPV's so close together and was that always the plan? Jake does a great promo talking about the match coming up with Macho. Jake is so sinister.

[PeteF3]

The WWF went into a big cost-cutting mode when they started falling behind on fiscal projections later in the year. They laid off some front office folks, streamlined the road schedule, and added an extra PPV to create more revenue.

 

I don't think the idea of Tuesday in Texas being a "test" for weekly or semi-weekly PPVs, which I've seen in lots of places, has any merit.

[garretta]

I usually agree with Pete, but not this time. I know most people wanted Savage to get at Jake at Survivor Series, and the fact that it was held off until Tuesday in Texas made them feel as though they were robbed. But would it really have been as satisfying to see them square off in a situation where Jake could avoid Randy by simply tagging out, or running away and absorbing a countout? This feud needed to be one-on-one from the word go, and though eliminating Jake from Survivor Series and making his match a six-man seemed like a desperate attempt to keep a lid on things until a more lucrative time, I think it worked out for the best. (I'm pretty sure it was also done to make at least one match go quicker so we would have more time for Hogan/Taker.)

 

As for the interview, it's another Jake classic. He has amazing chemistry with Mean Gene, and if you watch the interviews from the original '86 heel run, it was there from the start. The great thing about them was that Gene could unleash all the verbal static he wanted, and Jake wouldn't threaten him or scream at him, but merely smile, just like he did here.

 

I'd go into the lines that I thought were great, but they all were. I get the sense that Jake's been preparing for this run for a long, long time, because I'm not sure when he's ever been better in terms of mic work. There have been flashes, but nothing sustained, not even back in '86 when he was just as hated as he was here and ticketed for Hogan to boot. Randy's a great opponent for him, because he matches Jake's intensity in a totally different fashion. Jake's on the verbal roll of his career, and Randy can't hope to match it, as good a talker as he is. So he keeps it simple, basic, and intense. No flowery metaphors, no "OOOH YEAH!", just a husband vowing to get revenge on the man who nearly scared his wife to death.

 

Speaking of whom, Jake's threats toward Liz might have ended this angle prematurely. As I mentioned a post or two back, according to Jake Randy had to go to Vince and ask to beat Jake decisively to end the feud sooner than anybody wanted, mostly because the Hulettes were giving him a hard time over Liz's involvement. Jake threatening to make Liz a princess of the dark side could have certainly been one thing that brought this about, even if the Hulettes were smart to the business.

 

The unfortunate thing is, there's no angle at all without Liz, because there's no wedding for Jake to crash and present the snake to her at. Of course, the Hulettes presumably thought that Randy was legitimately retiring to raise a family, so that's probably another reason why they were angry. My point is, Jake does his job so well in these promos that it probably cost him a big Mania VIII payday and left Savage available to challenge Flair for the World title. On such small things do careers change course.

 

I'm wondering if the headaches of traveling with a cobra, even a de-venomized one, either led Jake to stop carrying the snake or Vince to tell him to stop. One wrong move with one of those things and tragedy could have struck (no pun intended, obviously).

[dawho5]

Stellar promo from Jake. There's not one part of it I would want different. Jake is such a ruthless, evil, horrible bastard and the worst part of all of that is the enjoyment he gets out of being that.