Who Said Wrestling Isn’t Real? ‘The Resurrection Of Jake The Snake’

The first time I ever laid eyes upon Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, he was feeding the “Macho Man” Randy Savage to his ever-present pet snake Damien. Savage, a beloved babyface (good guy), had moved to the commentary booth after being forced to “retire” at that years WrestleMania, and was being poked and goaded into combat by the antagonistic Roberts. Ignoring the pleas of his co-commentators, Savage stormed the ring where Roberts was waiting, King Cobra in hand, and the rest, as they say is, history. That was 25 years ago, and time has not been kind to Jake Roberts.

Didn’t you used to be Jake “The Snake” Roberts?

If you’re still a fan of the sport, then the fall of Jake Roberts will be of no surprise to you. Once a mighty pillar of wrestling’s 1980’s renaissance, Roberts is presented from the off as a bloated, hoarse, shell of a man. Sitting in an arm chair in his run-down living room, a picture of himself in his prime hanging on the wall a stark reminder of who he used to be. Roberts explains that he has grown tired of people asking “Man, what the fuck happened to you? Didn’t you used to be Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts?”. But it’s easy to see why this would be the first words out of any fan’s mouth. In his prime, Jake had been lean and mean, going toe to toe with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant and The Undertaker, but today his drug addled body is a shadow of the villain we all once new and loved to hate. Jake has battled drug abuse, alcoholism, and an abusive father, so when we meet him he’s about ready to tap out.

In true wrestling fashion, though, the fight wasn’t over yet. Waiting in the corner, hand outstretched for the “hot tag,” was former WCW World Champion Diamond Dallas Page, and he would make it his mission to save Jake Roberts – his own former mentor – from himself. You see, Page could have gone down the same path. A failed marriage and a lackluster run in the WWE after the WCW buyout could have sent DDP spiraling, but instead he embraced a healthy lifestyle, cultivating his own form of Yoga and reinventing himself as a bit of a Guru.

“The resurrection is coming, brother”

DDP invites Roberts to live with him in his Atlanta home. But he is not alone there. This isn’t just Jake’s story. It’s also the story of another former top talent called Scott Hall, who as Razor Ramon in the early to mid-1990’s, was a feature of the then WWF main event scene. Oozing machismo and dripping with gold, Hall would later become a pivotal player in the original NWO (New World Order) faction in WCW before slipping into his own cycle of drug and alcohol abuse.

If this was Hollywood, the two men would make miraculous recoveries, but this is not Hollywood, it is real life and there are moments of failure, of relapse and of regret. Never has the frustration of what it takes to deal with an addict been so perfectly depicted on screen, helped by the subjects’ willingness to open themselves up to the cameras like a raw nerve, particularly Roberts who, at first, is indistinguishable from his character. By the time the cameras stop rolling we finally see the real man, the legend behind the legend.

 “My history is not my destiny”

As the film concludes, Jake is welcomed back into the arms of Vince McMahon’s WWE, and he’s inducted into the 2016 Hall of Fame. If Jake hadn’t proven he could stay sober, this would never have happened. The current wrestling scene is squeaky clean, and punishes its talents for using any kind of controlled substances. But up until the late 1990’s, the locker room was a completely different world. A world where men and women medicated themselves to forget the pain of a predetermined, yet full contact sport, the pain of failed family lives, of broken homes and to bring them back to reality after spending 15 or so minutes in front of a crowd, living the life of a God. Jake Roberts was the perfect example of this broken lifestyle. He was “The Snake” wherever he went, and forgot how to be himself. That’s as much our fault as fans as it is his own.

Who says wrestling isn’t real?