Jake “The Snake” Roberts has lived through some of the darkest moments in wrestling history, but according to him, one contract dispute with WCW sent him into his worst downward spiral.
During an interview on Six Feet Under with Mark Callaway, Roberts revealed that a botched contract negotiation in 1992 pushed him into a 20-year cocaine addiction that nearly killed him.
Roberts had worked out a massive multi-million dollar deal with WCW’s Kip Frye before leaving WWF, but Vince McMahon enforced a 90-day no-compete clause that delayed his jump. By the time he was free to sign, Frye was gone, and Bill Watts had taken over. That’s when everything fell apart.
“Watts discarded my contract and told me, ‘You and I both know you can’t go back. You’re gonna take what we give you,’” Roberts recalled. Left with no real options, he accepted a fraction of his original deal—only for WCW to gut his entire character by banning his snake.
“They took my gimmick away. Now I’m back to zero. What the f** can I do?”* Roberts said.
That was the breaking point. “That right there pushed me off the deep end, brother. I really dug into the coke after that.”
Roberts admitted that the addiction nearly took his life, but at the time, he saw no other way to cope. “Not many people have a 20-year cocaine career… by the grace of God, I’m not dead.”
His struggles with addiction, financial troubles, and personal demons spiraled for years after his WCW stint. Looking back, Roberts sees the wrestling industry’s politics as a driving force behind his struggles. “Jealousy in wrestling has killed more people than war ever has,” he said.
Roberts’ story is another harsh reminder of how wrestling’s business decisions can have devastating real-life consequences.
Do you think WCW’s handling of Jake Roberts played a role in his downward spiral, or was his fate already sealed? Let us know in the comments below.
February 17, 2025 11:53 am
