Jake Roberts opens up.
Jake Roberts has been open about his struggles with addiction throughout his career. He worked hard to overcome them, and he has been sober for years. Still, his wrestling career was impacted by them, and Roberts recently discussed how his problems with WCW led to his addiction getting worse.
Speaking on Six Feet Under with Mark Calaway, Jake Roberts opened up about his addiction and how a dispute with WCW was a factor.
“Those were rough days on me because it took a lot to do what I did and I survive [laughs]. All the bullshit after the show takes its toll. You think you can handle anything until you find something you can’t handle, something that winds up handling you, and that’s what happened to me. I’d always been able to handle whatever I took or whatever I smoked and come out the other side. But when it got to cocaine, it tore me a new ass. I fought it for 20 years. Not many people have a 20-year cocaine career [laughs]. You’re dead by then. By the grace of god, I’m not dead. But what it did do is it opened up my door for me to fuck up my career. I had a lot of time left, and then my biggest mistake was found to WCW. I would have never went had I known what had happened," Roberts said.
Roberts recalled how he worked out a deal with Kip Frye, but Frye was fired, and his agreement was not honored when "Cowboy" Bill Watts took over in WCW. He detailed how Watts told him they both knew that he could not go back to WWE at that point.
"I worked a deal out with Kip Frye. I worked out a multi-million dollar deal with him. Well, Vince [McMahon], he got me on the last deal. For me to get out of my contract up there, because I was still under contract, I said, ‘Look, I’ll wrestle [Undertaker], I’ll put him over, but I’m done after tonight. If you won’t let me off my contract, I’m not going to the ring.’ Fuck you.’ Well, shit. ‘Fine, you’re done after tonight. But I want a 90-day no-compete.’ I thought, ‘Hm, 90 days off wouldn’t be bad. I could use that.’ I’m thinking that would be nice. So I do the thing, go home. After about three weeks, I get a phone call from Kip Frye. ‘I just want you to know they’re releasing me.’ ‘What about my contract?’ ‘Well, the contract’s still here.’ ‘Contract’s still here. Okay man, I hate to hear that, I was looking forward with you.’ Who’s he replaced by? Cowboy Bill Watts. So when the time comes for me to go down to WCW to sign my contact, who’s sitting there but The Cowboy. He’s sitting there, and he looks at me, he goes, ‘You got to be kidding me.’ He said,’ ‘I’ve read this fucking contract and guess what?’ [Mimes ripping] Tore it up and threw it on the floor. He said, ‘You and I both know you can’t go back. So you’re gonna take what we give you.’ So they give me $1,000 dollars a day. That did not go near what I had and had negotiated for," Roberts said.
Roberts then noted that he was told that he’d be putting over Sting before the company got rid of him. He said that Frye told him they would kill his character, too. He went on to note that the snake had been banned, so his gimmick had been taken away from him.
“The cameraman tells me, ‘Oh, there’s no s she on it. You can’t bring the snake out.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The snake’s been banned.’ So he’s taking my gimmick away from me. Now I’m back going, ‘What the fuck can I do?’ That right there pushed me off the deep end, brother, because I really dug into the coke after that because I was fucking mad. Not only did you hack that contract, but now you’re trying to kill the fucking gimmick? What can I do?" Roberts said.
Roberts then said that he put himself in rehab, and Bill Watts responded by firing him and fining him. This led to Roberts' eventual departure from WCW, even after Watts left the company.
Roberts recently provided a health update. Check out his comments here.
If you use these quotes, please credit the original source and link back to Fightful with an h/t for the transcription.
