Jake the Snake

Jake Roberts fell off the wagon at a Firestorm Pro Wrestling show in the Cleveland area on 9/12.

Before the incident that made a decent amount of publicity since a video of it ended up on the TMZ.com web site, Roberts was doing commentary for an undercard match and called an African-American trainee the N word, according to Jerry Mires (J-Rocc), and not in a joking manner.

According to J.T. Lightning, who worked with him on the show at a bar, he kept sending the boys to go get him drinks. Before the match there was a backstage meeting and Roberts gave a speech about them having a good house (550 fans, the most the promotion had ever done, probably largely due to Roberts) and told everyone they should do things believable on the show. At that point he was sitting around telling jokes.

They had a VIP session and he was up front selling his merchandise and when he came back, Lightning said Roberts was wasted, slurring his speech and walking about with his shorts down and his dick out. He said Roberts and him got together to work out their match and Roberts asked him if he knew where to score an eight-ball, and him talking about how much he’d done. Later, Roberts spit his false teeth to the floor. At another point, he passed out on the floor.

The promotion called Roberts’ agent and told him what was going on and the agent said that Roberts can perform like that and not to worry. He was saying strange things as the card was going on. He then went on, and did a promo, where he was slurring his speech and clearly wasted. Lightning then jumped him in a working way and Roberts no-sold. Lightning hit him hard with a forearm and Roberts complained and Lightning told him to “Sell for me you son of a bitch.” Lighting took him down basically shoot style and went for the pin. Roberts kicked out the first time, and the second time Lighting held on tight and told the ref to just count the pin. The match itself was maybe 30 seconds.

Lightning gave a speech saying he’s worked with drug addicts and he’s never worked with someone so unprofessional and started wearing at him for giving the fans such a non-performance. Roberts then pulled down his pants and his dick was showing at a card with a lot of kids there, including Lightning’s five-year-old daughter, and he was mad.

Mires came out as J-Rocc, basically to try and save the segment. He heeled on Jake and told Jake to DDT him to end the segment. Roberts then no-sold J-Rocc’s attack and made the segment even more awful as they tried to set up the short clothesline spot before the DDT and it was just a mess as Roberts stood there out of it.

Rocc was attempting to put himself in the DDT and Roberts wouldn’t go with it. Roberts instead walked away, and turned his back in the corner while J-Rocc threw worked punches at his back that Roberts ignored.

J-Rocc went out of the ring and grabbed a chair and apparently was going to waffle Roberts, but wrestler Raymond Rowe grabbed him and told him not to. He finally just gave up and left, saying on the mic, “Fuck this guy. Forget it. These wrestlers rocked the house. Let’s hear it for Firestorm.”

The workers were cussing Jake out backstage after it was over and Roberts is acting like he wanted to fight. Roberts then yelled at Mires for being unprofessional for shooting on him during the match (it was Lightning who did that). Mires then yelled at Roberts about being unprofessional.

TMZ reported that nearly two dozen empty small bottles of vodka were found near his gear, that Roberts broke his hand punching a wall and ran into the street crying. An ambulance and police were called but Roberts refused medical attention and wasn’t arrested.

Roberts’ assistant then posted an apology to the promoter of the show, saying he wasn’t to blame. He said Roberts told him he was given an open container of what he thought was a cold drink, and that he remembers nothing until waking up the next morning all beat up and sore. He claimed he was drugged and when he got home, he was confused and hadn’t eaten or slept and didn’t remember anything.

Roberts later did an interview and had a different story, admitting he was drinking earlier in the day, but still believed he was drugged from the open container later.

“How dare Jake choose to drink 25 shots of vodka knowing he was there to perform,” wrote Mires on his web site. “How dare Jake pull his dick out in front of a truckload of kids, and how dare Jake try to say he was drugged at the show.

I am outraged they would even say something like that. Jake drank himself stupid, took whatever pills or God knows what else he did, and knew what he was doing the whole time.”

Mires said that Roberts was allowed to go on because he had appeared in Cleveland about a year ago against him in a match when he was in a similar condition, but was able to be led through a semblance of a match, and also noted his agent, when called before the match, said Roberts would be able to do enough to get by. The promoter was also concerned about the guy who people came to see not performing.




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