Jake 'The Snake' Roberts

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Grimmas]

Everybody says he is a master of psychology, but show me some great Jake matches. I like watching him and all, but it never seemed to translate to anything high end.

[BigBadMick]

That's the funny thing about Jake - he's incredibly watchable but never quite puts together fantastic matches. It's like the Arn discussion going on, except he's another rung down that ladder.

[ohtani's jacket]

If it were 100 best promos he'd be all over it.

[PeteF3]

The two best Jake matches I've seen are the Steamboat match from the Boston Garden and the Flair match from Mid-South. And the Steamboat match is decidedly a "Jake match," with pretty awesome psychology at work. The heel-heel Savage SNME bout is really fun as well.

[Phil Schneider]

I though Jake and Dustin had a great WCWSN match in 1992 too

[PeteF3]

Yes, I forgot about that one. I also like the SNME Savage match (the second one from '92), but the Dustin bout is the best post-heel turn Jake match.

[JerryvonKramer]

For me Jake is Exhibit A in the "praised by workers, fans don't see it" case.

 

I mean both Jake and DiBiase have said numerous times that they thought they had a great match at Wrestlemania. Yeah, that one at WM 6. They don't see things the way we do.

[soup23]

I would also point to the 5/14/94 Jake vs. DWB SMW match that got a lot of praise and shows Jake using his psychology to make a match great.

[Graham Crackers]

Jake vs Dick Slater was a dope feud.

[shoe]

On the WWE network. On the Old School matches he was in a few. He wasn't having the best match on the show. He was having the most interesting though . Be it a spot, or a payoff to something . Just really smart stuff .

[Mr. Lacelle]

Jake's best stuff was against Ronnie Garvin.

[KrisZ]

Jake vs. Brad Armstrong (4/16/85)

Jake vs. DiBiase (7/22/85)

Jake vs. DiBiase (7/2885)

Jake vs. Humongous (11/29/85)

Jake vs. Slater (1/1/86)

Jake vs. Slater (1/24/86)

Jake vs. Taylor (2/11/86)

Jake vs. Slater (2/14/86)

Jake vs. Slater (2/28/86)

 

That was the good shit in Mid-South and gives you an idea of how great Jake was working in high level singles matches. The series with Slater in Houston in Jan-Feb 1986 was fucking amazing.

[Timbo Slice]

I don't think he has enough high-end stuff, sadly.

[BillThompson]

Great promo, and he knew how to connect with the crowd, but I don't think the high end work is present.

[ohtani's jacket]

Watched a couple of the Jake/Garvin matches, and while they didn't change my opinion of Jake as a worker, they were really good TV bouts. It was like early pencils from a comic book artist where everything's still a bit rough. Jake's psychology was there for all to see, but he hadn't got things down pat yet and was playing around with stuff seeing what worked. He wore these sort of kickboxer pants and didn't have the same promo voice. plus he had a lot of backing away moves where he slithered around like a snake. His limbwork was good and Garvin was the man as usual. The mop top put me off a bit, but he was the same hard hitting SOB as the crew cut version. Man I love Garvin. I don't know how I'm going to separate him from the Hammer.

[ohtani's jacket]

Slater vs. Roberts with Dark Journey in the cage was good, though it did expose Roberts' weakness as a worker. He was simply boring working from the top. The match doesn't get good until Slater takes over and Roberts begins selling the arm. The commentary dropping in and the crowd noise dropping out was a travesty, and the finish wasn't really the payoff the crowd wanted, but overall it was good stuff.

[ohtani's jacket]

The Flair match was a bit of a disappointment. I think that's enough casual viewing of Jake. Time to move onto a more deserving worker.

[Parties]

Jake is a guy who I will defend to the death. I hadn't even considered him for my list until I was just watching the Chris Adams/Gino/Jake vs. Von Erichs tag in World Class. Ranked #15 in the Texas balloting and Jake's the best thing about the match. Don't know if I'll vote for him, and I don't expect he'll do well in the voting as the negative impressions of him as a worker are too well entrenched, but the notion that he was only useful as a talker is crazy. I would also add that as a heel he expertly portrayed a real range of comedy stooge to genuinely dangerous psycho and points in between.

• The Flair title defense in Mid-South was really good last time I watched it. Jake in Mid-South in general was tremendously charismatic, to the point that it enhanced his matches.
• I really like watching him even against mediocre opponents. Jake-Honky from Mania 3 is a lot of fun. "Great Matches aren't as important as Great Performances" crowd, take note.
• The aforementioned Steamboat and Savage matches are excellent.
• Even something like the Blindfold Match with Martel, which is a bad idea and cheesy as hell, exemplifies how great Roberts was at working crowds.
• He's got lots of good performances in matches where he either wasn't the focal point or it didn't matter. He works the '92 Rumble the way a sensible, logical heel would work a Rumble, which I think only Punk has really ripped off since.

Post-AAA Jake obviously tarnished his legacy, and I think there are people who may not like watching him in retrospect because of what he became, but there's so much to like in his 80s run. Even his Stampede stuff feels like an example of a guy who was kind of a prodigy and had an awesome grasp of the business early.

[Coffey]

I don't think he has enough high-end stuff, sadly.

 

I agree with this statement but my question is, how does a guy like Jake that doesn't have the high-end stuff fall below guys that only have like twelve matches total that anyone has seen? Guys like Pat O'Connor are going to be on lists and how much of his stuff is even on film? Someone watches five matches on YouTube and suddenly he's top 100 all-time but then guys like Jake & Barbarian get totally disregarded. Definitely some different criteria among all of us for what constitutes inclusion in the list. Which isn't even a negative as I like that the lists will be so different from one another.

[Exposer]

 

I don't think he has enough high-end stuff, sadly.

 

I agree with this statement but my question is, how does a guy like Jake that doesn't have the high-end stuff fall below guys that only have like twelve matches total that anyone has seen? Guys like Pat O'Connor are going to be on lists and how much of his stuff is even on film? Someone watches five matches on YouTube and suddenly he's top 100 all-time but then guys like Jake & Barbarian get totally disregarded. Definitely some different criteria among all of us for what constitutes inclusion in the list. Which isn't even a negative as I like that the lists will be so different from one another.

 

A part of it has to do with time and trying to watch just enough for everybody. Five matches might be enough for one person, maybe not for others. There's also the added factor of the best of some people with limited footage only being available while the routine matches of Jake and the Barbarian are available everywhere under the sun. I understand the frustration with that, but that's how it goes I guess.

[JerryvonKramer]

Problem with Jake for me is that he's been talked up for years as having great psychology and I just don't see it.

[WingedEagle]

Not sure if it makes any sense but Jake's psychology and work translates better on the character front than it does in the ring. Undeniably has a unique presence, delivery and way of carrying himself but it doesn't seem to yield great matches.

[Matt D]

 

I don't think he has enough high-end stuff, sadly.

 

I agree with this statement but my question is, how does a guy like Jake that doesn't have the high-end stuff fall below guys that only have like twelve matches total that anyone has seen? Guys like Pat O'Connor are going to be on lists and how much of his stuff is even on film? Someone watches five matches on YouTube and suddenly he's top 100 all-time but then guys like Jake & Barbarian get totally disregarded. Definitely some different criteria among all of us for what constitutes inclusion in the list. Which isn't even a negative as I like that the lists will be so different from one another.

 

Batting average?

[Cap]

I think the big thing with Jake is that he produced matches that probably worked fairly well for him in the moment and accomplished specific goals (getting other guys over as either heel or face, making other people look strong and/or important, developing characters and storylines), but they didn't have a lot of rewatch value, which I think is an important distinction, at least for me. I can watch a match and think that was awesome for what it was but I never want to watch it again because in more or less a vacuum it will be pointless. Jake was such a powerful charicter who was so smart about building a match, I always kind of saw him as constantly building people and moments and very rarely ever having a match that I would be excited to go back and rewatch.

 

That is why when I talk about Jake's psychology I don't mean his in ring storytelling and the placement of moves and transitions and so on, like I might with other people. I generally refer to Jake's psychology in terms of how he builds the dynamic between himself and his opponent before, during (to a much lesser extent), and after a match. Jake's best characteristic was not just that he was a great and compelling promo, but that all his angles seemed to have an extra layer or two that only he could bring. He was a thoughtful persona and articulate, but in that way that was borderline (and sometimes not so borderline) psychotic in a way that provided him with an expanded set of "reasons" for wanting to fight someone and he was very good in explaining the complexity of his animosity (even if it was just because he was evil) in a way that was digestible and added to the match. The problem is the matches (that I have seen at least) don't live up in a vacuum. He has a few nice little bright spots (Savage SNME being my personal favorite - love that match) where everything came together to produce wrestling with great rewatch value, but for the most part his character, his style, and maybe his skill set produced matches that were underwealming but probably served the broader stories he was trying to tell a little better than they did produce matches that have rewatch value.

 

For me, I don't think he will make my list, but even still I have to judge him with a little bit different analytic. He is a guy who had insane wrestling talents that I don't think translate well into how I currently think about "Greatest Wrestler Ever". He will likely not make my list, but if you changed the question to, "what 100 wrestlers would you pick to start a promotion with?" he might very well be on that list.

 

I need to watch more older Jake because most of my thoughts on him are sort of off the top of my head thinking about his prime WWE run and later.