Jake Roberts on His WWE Status, Giving Advice to Young Talent, Breaking New Ground

WWE Hall of Famer Jake "The Snake" Roberts recently spoke to CBC News.

On breaking new ground in wrestling: “It’s kind of scary breaking new ground. It’s kinda scary trying things that haven’t been tried. You don’t know if you’re going to come out on the upside or the downside of it. They remember the bad nights, they don’t remember all the good ones. If you have a ‘stinkaroo’ of a match, man, people remember that, so you don’t want to have one of those, you know, and you go out there and give it your best nightly. The nights you come up short should drive you to be better. That’s the key — always try to get better. The day that you go to the ring and say you didn’t learn anything, then it’s time for you to take your tights off, put them in a pile, squirt them with some lighter fluid and then burn them, because if you quit learning, then you’re not trying.”

On younger talent coming to him for advice: “These guys are very open to listening to what I have to say. Several of them come to me nightly and say ‘Hey, will you watch my match and give me some pointers?’ And that makes me feel really good, and I love helping them because I want the product to be the best that it can be. I want these guys to enjoy what they’re doing, so I try to teach them a little bit, you know, give them some of the knowledge that was given to me many years ago. That’s my duty, that’s my pleasure, that’s my dream.”

On his WWE status: “I have no idea what those guys are doing. If they decide they want me, they’ll call me.”