Jake Roberts Recalls Almost Being Killed By A Snake During A Match

WWE

Usually, if you told someone that a man was choked by a snake before escaping into a crowd full of people, there would be a certain amount of alarm bells. Thankfully, this is wrestling, and literally nothing is shocking.

Jake “The Snake” Roberts was famed for bringing a giant snake to the ring, and honestly there were a surprising lack of issues considering snakes (even de-fanged ones) are pretty dangerous creatures.

However, speaking on the DDP Snake Pit Podcast, Jake recalled a match against Ricky Steamboat that didn’t go to plan at all.

The snake, because it’s a snake, decided it would try to choke Jake, and when snakes decide to choke you, they generally succeed. Roberts was choked out, and could have died if it wasn’t for Steamboat pulling the snake off.

Unfortunately, the snake then decided it fancied a walk, and tried to slither into the crowd. Jake remembered:

“Ricky Steamboat had to pull one off of me in Indianapolis that choked me out in the match. I collapsed, went down, and Steamboat’s seeing that the snake was around my throat and that I was turning and he knew to unwind the snake. You can’t break the snake’s grip because what happens when you lay across their scales like this, their scales interlock You can’t break that lock. So you have to either get the head or the tail and unravel them. Well, Steamboat unravelled it then let go because Steamboat is afraid of snakes too.

“As I come to, the snake is going into the fourth row and the tail, luckily, is still in the ring. And I lunge and grab the tail and I whip it all back in. It’s about a 17 footer. Because the people were starting the red sea movement where they’re all running and screaming. It was pretty incredible.

“We went back to Indianapolis about three months later. As soon as I got there, I thought I was fixing to be arrested because the police were coming and the building manager and I’m like, ‘What have I done?’ They’re like, ‘Did you bring the same snake?’ I’m like, ‘Why?’ ‘Because, man, everyone called wanting to know if it’s the same snake because they want to watch that son-of-a-b*tch kill you’. I’m like, ‘Oh I love my fans’.”

Despite being best remembered for his time in the WWF, Jake is now a regular on AEW, where he currently manages Lance Archer.

Credit to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.

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• snake
• Ricky Steamboat
• Jake Roberts
• wwe

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