Awesome / Jake Roberts

---

• Almost every time Jake picked up a mic back in his prime, he spoke pure Creepy Awesome to the crowd. His well-spoken, yet borderline psychotic, promos cut to the heart of the feud, and brought a kind of intensity no one else had at the time. His "Wallowing in the muck of avarice" promo from Wrestlemania VI is considered one of his best ever, and that's just as a face.
  "Mean" Gene Okerlund: Longfellow couldn't have said it better.
  • His greatness on the mike is made ever more evident in his promos as a part of the Hulkamaniacs. Hulk Hogan and Demolition yell and ramble like most other meathead jocks, but Jake could steal the scene in 10 seconds with nothing more than a few poetic words and his trademark malice.
    "The bottom line is this, my man- a man is dyin' of thirst has to have water, a dog that's starvin' has to have food, a child that's cryin' has got to have some attention... I have got to have you, Ted DiBiase..."
  • Jake shared this gem during a promo at the beginning of his classic feud with the Undertaker at the start of the latter's heel/face turn. The sheer evil awesome of that line prompted even a hardened veteran commentator to state his displeasure.
    Roberts: "If the Winter Olympics had an event for clubbing seals, I would win the gold medal!"
    Gorilla Monsoon: "My God, what a disgusting person!"
  • One time, when Gene Okerlund moved the microphone to Roberts' face, it seemingly cut out, as everyone watching could see Roberts' mouth moving, but there was no sound. After a few seconds, he stopped, then said:
    "I just got everyone in this arena to pay attention to me and I wasn't saying a word."
• Catching a fly ball during a softball game in Quebec. To elaborate, as he was going to catch it he falls on his back and he only barely moves his arm for it to fall right into his hand. Can be viewed here.
• His return for the 2014 "Old School" Raw and dropping the newest Damien on a prone Dean Ambrose. The entire crowd was stunned. Even those who had been following his roller coaster of rehabilitation efforts didn't see it coming.
  • Allegedly, the only people who were in on this were Vince McMahon, Roberts, Diamond Dallas Page, and a few executives. So everyone else's reactions, if this is to be believed, were genuine. You could consider it an awesome moment for Ambrose as well, if only for barely, barely managing to keep himself from breaking out into a massive shit-eating grin as one of the true legends of wrestling (and his own personal favorite wrestler growing up) makes him part of his most iconic gimmick.
• He invented the DDT. This is one of the moves synonymous with pro wrestling, and the Snake is the man who created it. By accident.
• It's also Nightmare Fuel at its finest, but the lengths to which Roberts went to screw with Randy Savage during their feud were incredibly devious. From sticking a snake in the wedding gifts for the Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth, to having a king cobra BITE SAVAGE IN THE RING.
• Hell, Jake overcoming his substance abuse issues and getting himself clean enough for not only the 2014 return listed above, but his Hall of Fame induction. Sure, he had a lot of help from Diamond Dallas Page (and God bless him for it) but no matter how much help a guy is offered, he has to be the one to do the hard work, and Jake did it. And he's still clean and looking good, more than two years on.
  • As the next entry shows, he's still clean and looking great six years later...^note In fact, one minor potential problem Bryan Alvarez had with the idea of Jake as a manager in AEW is that Jake is still so big and tough-looking even at the age of 64 that Bryan is concerned he may physically overshadow whoever it is he's managing!
• In a shocking twist that nobody saw coming, Jake is back in the wrestling business in 2020, showing up on the post-Revolution episode of AEW Dynamite and tearing a strip off Cody. While he's in the company as a manager rather than an active wrestler, his promo skills are as sharp as ever, as he reveals that he's bringing in a new talent to take Cody down, referring to Cody as "Caesar" a week before the Ides of March, challenging him to bring his "one-trick pony" Arn Anderson to balance out against Jake at ringside in next week's match, and, just to prove that this old snake still has plenty of venom left in him, finishing with a killer burn to Cody.
  Jake: A wise man once told me, never ever turn your back on someone you respect, or someone you're afraid of. <turns his back on Cody and leaves the ring, casually tossing the mic over his shoulder for Cody to catch as he does>
  • Among all the venom and malice Jake spits at Cody in that promo, there's one achingly personal Badass Boast that stands out and gets a huge pop from the crowd.
    Jake: It's been twenty years for me, Cody. Twenty years to get clean, to get right. <crowd applauds> And by God, I earned it!
• His simple utterance of the 2 words 'Trust Me'. Ones that Jake brought back on his appearance on the March 25, 2020 AEW Dynamite promo he cut on Cody. The 2 most dangerous words he has in his arsenal. Ones you don't ever want to hear spoken to you, especially in that distinctive raspy yet dark and commanding voice. Oh, and it was as awesome as ever.
  • That promo was also the first time an AEW rival of The Elite acknowledged their dubious origins from within New Japan Pro-Wrestling and the Bullet Club and played that into a motive for confronting at least one of them. He outright stated the latter name twice (albeit getting bleeped out both times) while questioning "somebody's" idea of who the Bullet Club's best were (without outright stating it was Cody, given how the whole idea of The Elite started with Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks), and even accused them of not having Jake or his client Lance Archer brought in out of fear since they knew of Archer's work in Japan (claiming it contradicted their promise to give the people what they want). That Jake did this while propping up a feud that he started himself by showing up and telling Cody in so many words that he doesn't respect him, makes this all the more fitting.
• He had two more awesome words weeks later. After tweeting that he was really alone and feeling the strain of the road in a motel room, he added "Still sober."
• Jake's father Grizzly Smith always used to tell him that was a failure and would never amount to anything. Jake became one of the most famous wrestlers of the 80s and has been inducted into both the WWE Hall of Fame and the Cauliflower Alley Club. Grizzly, on the other hand, is almost completely forgotten; these days, the only time he ever gets mentioned is when people are talking about Jake, and/or how much of a Jerkass he was in life.
• Due to his health problems, Jake can't take any bumps anymore, which means no more of his iconic DDT... but he can do a short-arm clothesline, and yeah, the Snake still has a little venom left in his fangs.

---