|
A few years back, the WWE did a DVD retrospective highlighting his life and career. As a bonus, they included several of his matches. I finally decided to watch this DVD a few weeks ago and one thing in particular stuck out to me…as good as Jake Roberts was, he did not have what I believe to be ANY great matches. This was not his fault, mind you. He had several battles that stand out in my mind as quite good, but none of them were traditionally rated by the usual critics as being at the four-star or better level. When you think about how good he was that’s actually a damn shame. Here’s a guy that had excellent feuds that were ahead of their time and the kind of stuff that we, as the IWC, would eat up in the modern era. The story he had going with Ricky Steamboat where he knocked him out on the floor with a DDT – legitimately knocked him out cold and gave him a wicked concussion – never led to a classic match. Two years later when Ravishing Rick Rude hit on his wife and had her face airbrushed on the front and back of his tights, only for Roberts to rip off said tights on national TV (sensors galore!) never led to a 4-star encounter. His feud with the Million Dollar Man over the Million Dollar title didn’t either. Not even the crème de la crème of all the great storylines of the Snake’s career against Macho Man Randy Savage, started when a king cobra popped out of a wedding gift box at Macho Man and Liz’s reception, accelerated to dizzying awesomeness when that cobra bit (to say the least) Macho’s arm, and culminated with several really good matches in late 1991 and early 1992…not even THAT feud produced what can be generally regarded as a classic match! Remember that this is not just my own personal ratings of matches being taken into account here, but also the opinions of the Wade Kellers and Dave Meltzers of the world. By and large, despite all his amazing character work, Jake Roberts has only a bunch of “good” matches to show for his career. Why is that? Unfortunately, I think the answer is simple: he just wasn’t given the opportunity in the WWF to showcase his wrestling talents in lengthy matches. I do not believe that you can achieve true greatness unless you get the time to tell a complete story. You can leave a critic wanting more on occasion, but you cannot leave a critic wanting more all of the time. Jake Roberts, again by no fault of his own, always left you wanting to see more. It’s no different than a great movie. You’d be hard pressed to find a classic movie that lasted 90-minutes. By and large, that just simply is not enough time to tell a full, thorough tale. Similarly, you’ll be hard pressed to find a Jake Roberts match that lasts longer than 15-minutes. During his entire televised run in the WWF, I cannot personally recall a match of his that lasted longer than the draw against Rick Rude at Wrestlemania IV that went exactly 15-minutes to its time limit. It was actually a rare thing to see any match during that era go for longer than 15-minutes, as that was just kind of the norm. Had Roberts been having the exact same feuds in the NWA/WCW, I honestly wonder if he would be considered one of the top 10 wrestlers of all-time. NWA was about wrestling; WWF was about entertainment. It really wasn’t until Bret Hart started inching his way toward the top as a singles competitor in the IC title division that we saw something beside the main-event get a lot of time to develop in the ring. So, there was some excellence that we likely missed out on because the WWE wasn’t geared toward the sport side of sports entertainment until the Brets and Shawns of the world let it be known that the in-ring product would matter post-Hogan. Jake had all the tools and the right opponents to have excellent matches that fans and critics around the world could universally agree were the stuff of legend. The only thing he lacked was the chance. Since he never got to the main-event, he never received the opportunity to get those 15-20 + minute time slots for his matches. What if he’d have just switched eras with Mick Foley? When you look at those two, there are a lot of similarities. Both were fantastic on the microphone and both knew exactly what they were doing inside the squared circle. Roberts was a better, smarter wrestler, but Foley was great in his own way. Neither had the bodies to become top level stars and had to get by on passion, skill, and grit. The difference between them was the eras in which they came about. Foley was afforded the luxury of a chance; his position was quite similar to Jake’s in the grand scheme of things. In the heyday of the Hogan era, Roberts was always involved in top level feuds. By and large, he was the “set-up guy” for Hogan. The top heels worked with Jake en route to storylines with the Hulkster. Foley spent a lot of time as the set-up guy during the Attitude era, only he got to set-up guys while sharing their main-event spotlight in the process. Had Jake, in his prime, gotten Foley’s opportunities, I think we would have seen him inducted into the Hall of Fame already (baggage and all). Another thing that hindered Jake was the size of the roster during his best years. Not now, not during the Attitude era, nor ever before has there been a roster so stacked as the WWF’s during the Rock and Wrestling years. Since Vince had a ton of money and wanted to monopolize, he went out and bought the top stars from each territory. Go back and look at those initial Wrestlemania cards and notice how many big name stars (and how many secondary stars w/ “names” of their own) were featured on those events. Jake was probably lucky that he even got the time that he did to perform with all of those other guys competing for minutes. The late-80s WWF roster was like an All-Star team – there’s only so much time in 1-3 hours that a booker can fill no different than there’s only 48-60-minutes in a basketball or football All-Star game. Simply put: not everyone gets equal time. That’s understood. BUT THAT DOESN’T CHANGE THE FACT THAT IT HAS HURT THE LEGACY OF JAKE “THE SNAKE”. At the end of the day, Jake Roberts is still one of the best. I just wish I had a time machine to bring his 1980s persona into the late 90s or modern era. If he gets the same shake as Foley or a Randy Orton, we’d be having plenty more discussions about him…
|
