Jake Roberts: A Career Retrospective
Jake Roberts was born Aurelian Smith Jr in Gainesville, Texas on 30th March 1955 to a young mother, who was under the age of 17, and territory wrestler Aurelian “Grizzly” Smith. Because of his mother's young age and the fact that his father left her alone with two children, Roberts would be raised by his grandmother until her death in 1966.
Jake Roberts would be forced to move in with his father, his father's new wife, and his half-siblings, and while he had a strained relationship with his father, his relationship with his stepmother would include her physically and sexually abusing him during his adolescence. His father was allegedly doing the same to Roberts’ sisters.
All of this has resulted in a fractured family dynamic and deep scars to form amongst the children, his half-brother and half-sister also went on to become wrestlers. This was all explored in more depth in VICE's Dark Side of the Ring.
Jake Roberts started his career in the Louisiana area in 1974 and worked as a referee and wrestler competing in Mid-South Wrestling, Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, and Georgia Championship Wrestling.
Being a good wrestler in the late 1970s wasn’t enough and he would travel up to Canada to work in Stampede Wrestling in order to help develop a character. In 1983, while at Georgia Championship Wrestling, Roberts would join up with Paul Ellering and his stable, the Legion of Doom.
Jake Roberts makes his way to the WWF
Upon his debut for WWF/WWE in March 1986, Jake Roberts would start carrying around a snake around in a canvas bag and would defeat George Wells at WrestleMania II, using his snake, Damien, to his advantage, wrapping it around his head.
His evil side would be shown again during his feud with Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat where he would DDT him onto the concrete floor right in front of his wife, rendering him unconscious. It was in this feud that we would see a specialist match called a Snake Pit Match (a no-DQ match).
Jake Roberts’s microphone skills are one of his strongest tools and because of this he was given his own talk show segment called “The Snake Pit” in late 1986, this segment would continue until July 1987. Around the time of the first Snake Pit segment, Roberts began becoming very popular with the fans even while being presented as a villainous character.
This can be seen during his program with Randy Savage in November 1986 and the crowd reaction to him hitting a DDT on Hulk Hogan during his talk show segment, the crowd began chanting for him and the DDT. This ultimately caused the potential program between the two to be scrapped.
In 1987 Roberts turned face and entered into a feud with The Honky Tonk Man after Roberts was hit with a guitar that resulted in his neck being injured. They would end up facing each other at WrestleMania III, with Alice Cooper being in the corner of Roberts.
By April 1988 he would enter a feud with Ravishing Rick Rude, which would center around Rude wanting a piece of Jake Roberts' real-life wife, Cheryl, and in March of 1989, he would have a program with André the Giant focusing on André’s fear of snakes and would face him at WrestleMania V.
He would go on to feud with Ted DiBiase throughout the end of 1989 into 1990 culminating in a match at WrestleMania VI and at WrestleMania VII Jake Roberts would face Rick “The Model” Martel in a Blindfold match after Martel blinded Roberts with his cologne named “Arrogance” in early 1991.
His most famous and harrowing performances and feuds would be with the Ultimate Warrior in the summer of 1991. Warrior had come to Jake Roberts to help him defeat the Undertaker, Roberts explained he would need to pass three tests in order to gain the “knowledge of the dark side."
The third task was for Warrior to walk through a room full of live snakes to reach a chest containing "the answer", upon opening the chest he would be bitten by a King Cobra, as he became weakened by the bite it would be revealed that Jake Roberts had been working with The Undertaker and Paul Bearer all along. He would later remark that you can "Never trust a snake."
This moment turned Jake Roberts into a "Heel" for the first time since 1987, while his vignettes and promos at this time enhanced the character immensely, making him a more sadistic character on screen, unfortunately with the firing of the Ultimate Warrior the night of SummerSlam, the program was canceled, but Roberts would continue to show dark and menacing tendencies when he faced off against Randy Savage post-SummerSlam.
His first act of villainy would be to ruin the post-SummerSlam reception of Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth; she would open a box containing a live cobra and see her husband attacked by both Roberts and The Undertaker. The feud would run until Saturday Night's Main Event XXX, afterwards, Jake Roberts would feud with The Undertaker up until WrestleMania VIII, where he would leave the company shortly after.
Life After the WWF and the Hall of Fame
Jake Roberts would leave the WWF and head to WCW to work in 1992; he would leave that very same year and spend 1993 and 1994 touring the independent circuit before returning to the WWF between 1996 -1997, performing in ECW 1997 – 1998, and returning to the independent circuit in 1999.
He would work for TNA in 2006 and 2008 and return to the WWF/WWE in 2005, where he would work with Randy Orton during his “legend killer” gimmick, and in 2014 to attack Dean Ambrose (Jon Moxley), he would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by Diamond Dallas Page on April 5th, 2014.
To this day, Jake Roberts still gives off a menacing presence on screen; he is currently signed to AEW where he works as a manager for Lance Archer. His first appearance with the company was as the blackjack dealer for the Women’s Casino Battle Royale referencing his infamous "you wanna play 21?" promo from 1999.
AEW have used all their legends in a manager/mentor capacity and Jake Roberts was no exception teaming up with the fearsome and gigantic “Murderhawk Monster” Lance Archer in March 2020. The two men made it their mission to target Cody, entering the AEW TNT Championship tournament, with Roberts by his side Archer would destroy all his competition, facing off against Cody for the Championship at Double or Nothing.
Despite Archer losing at the May 23rd event, the two of them have become one of the most formidable teams in AEW. Jake Roberts signed a two-year extension in July 2021, securing his place in the company until 2023, and the future looks bright for the Snake and Murderhawk Monster going forward.