The 10 People Jake “The Snake” Roberts Genuinely Hated – From Backstage Politics to the Man Who Broke Him as a Child
Jake “The Snake” Roberts invented the DDT. He delivered promos that felt like threats whispered in the dark. He made audiences believe every word because the darkness in his eyes was never entirely an act. Wrestling gave him a stage, but the men on this list gave him the reasons to hate.
In raw interviews, his Snake Pit podcast, and unfiltered conversations that spanned decades, Jake named names — not for clicks, not for revenge, but because the pain was real. These are the ten people he said he could not stand. Some took money. Some took trust. Some took pieces of his body and his career. One took his childhood before it even began.
This is not gossip. This is Jake Roberts in his own words — the cost of the business, the politics, the betrayals, and the one wound that never healed.
#10: Bret Hart – The Philosophical Clash
Jake didn’t hate Bret Hart for injuring him or stealing money. The grudge was deeper and colder: a fundamental disagreement about what professional wrestling was supposed to be.
Jake believed wrestling lived or died on psychology — making the audience feel something real, twisting their emotions until they couldn’t look away. Bret was the ultimate technician: crisp, clean, athletic. His matches with Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin are still studied today. But from Jake’s viewpoint, Hart lacked the emotional connection that turned a good performer into a star who moved the needle.
Jake also questioned Bret’s size and timing as champion. At around 200 pounds, Hart didn’t project the physical authority Jake believed a champion needed in that era. More importantly, Hart became champion during one of the WWF’s roughest financial periods. Jake’s blunt question: if Bret was truly a draw, where was the money?
It was never personal violence. It was a war over the soul of the business.
#9: Shawn Michaels and The Clique – The Sabotage of Sobriety
When Jake returned to the WWF in 1996, he was sober, born-again, and trying to rebuild his life. What he walked into, he said, was “horrible.”
Shawn Michaels and the influential backstage faction known as The Clique held real power. They could shape storylines and bury careers. According to Jake, they used that power to torment him at his most fragile moment. They mocked his faith and sobriety openly. Worse, Jake claimed they repeatedly planted drugs and drug paraphernalia in his luggage — a deliberate campaign to trigger a relapse or get him arrested.
A man fighting for his life was being actively undermined by the very people he had to share a locker room with. Jake called it among the cruelest things he ever experienced in wrestling.
#8: Buzz Sawyer – The Predator Who Took Money and Trust
Buzz Sawyer had no political power and no massive size. What he had was zero conscience.
Jake described Sawyer as a cheap-shot artist who worked stiff on younger, defenseless talent who couldn’t fight back. Even darker was the money. Sawyer offered to train a young Mark Calaway (the future Undertaker) for $10,000 — then vanished with the cash. No lessons, no contact, nothing. Jake watched the pattern repeat: Sawyer preyed on the naive and the hopeful, taking their money and giving nothing in return.
To Jake, that wasn’t just unprofessional. It was predatory.
#7: The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith & The Dynamite Kid) – Cruelty Beyond Ribbing
Jake drew a hard line: there is a difference between locker-room ribbing and targeted cruelty.
The British Bulldogs — especially the Dynamite Kid — crossed that line so violently that Jake refused to soften his words. He called the Dynamite Kid “an utter bastard.” While acknowledging his in-ring genius, Jake said the man outside the ring was rotten.
The stories Jake told were horrifying. He described the Bulldogs injecting a mentally handicapped young man with steroids and possibly air bubbles — a potentially lethal act treated as entertainment. They also allegedly mistreated their own mascot dog, Matilda. Jake saw it as a pattern: the powerless became targets, and the cruelty spilled over onto anyone who couldn’t fight back.
Talent never excused behavior for Jake Roberts.
#6: Big Van Vader – The Man Who Broke Him Twice
Big Van Vader was a legitimate physical monster. Jake respected the power. He could not respect the lack of control.
In their 1996 King of the Ring semi-final, Vader’s reckless style broke Jake’s sternum. Jake confronted him afterward. Vader’s response? He got “excited by the crowd.”
Two months later, after Jake recovered, management booked them again. Vader broke the same sternum a second time. Jake refused to ever work with Leon White again. Physical trust in wrestling is everything. Once it’s gone, there is nothing left to negotiate.
#5: The Ultimate Warrior – The Payday That Was Stolen
By 1991 Jake had endured politics, pain, and personal demons. The Ultimate Warrior program was supposed to be his payoff — a dark, psychological feud perfectly suited to Jake’s style. The audience was responding. Then SummerSlam 1991 arrived.
Jake said the Warrior held Vince McMahon hostage backstage, demanding extra money and threatening to walk out. McMahon paid. The match happened. Immediately afterward, McMahon fired the Warrior. The entire program died on the spot. No continuation. No further paydays. The rocket that was strapped to Jake’s back was ripped away.
Jake carried a roll of quarters for weeks, ready to use them if he crossed paths with Jim Hellwig. They later made a quiet peace before the Warrior’s death in 2014, but the damage to Jake’s career trajectory was permanent.
#4: Jerry Lawler – The Man Who Weaponized His Sobriety
In 1996, during Jake’s born-again, sober return, the company turned his real-life recovery into a storyline. Jerry Lawler was tasked with mocking Jake’s faith and addiction on camera — relentlessly and personally.
Lawler poured real whiskey down Jake’s throat and over his face during a segment. The burn was immediate and real. When the script called for Jake to retaliate in kind, Lawler refused. He was happy to use Jake’s deepest vulnerability for heat, but he would not accept the same treatment himself.
Jake has never spoken about that moment without visible pain.
#3: The Honky Tonk Man – The Guitar Shot That Started the Addiction
One real guitar changed Jake Roberts’ life forever.
In 1987, during a Snake Pit segment, the Honky Tonk Man was scripted to hit Jake with a breakaway guitar. The instrument used was not the pre-cut prop. It was a solid acoustic. The impact fractured Jake’s neck. He spent weeks pulling wood and fiberglass splinters from his back. The resulting chronic pain led directly to prescription painkillers.
Jake has said plainly: that guitar shot in 1987 was the beginning of his painkiller addiction — the addiction that nearly destroyed him. The Honky Tonk Man has denied it was a real guitar. Jake, the pain, and the medical consequences say otherwise.
#2: Hulk Hogan – The Politics That Capped His Ceiling
In 1986 Jake was one of the hottest acts in the company. A Snake Pit segment with Hogan ended with Jake hitting the DDT. The crowd didn’t boo the villain — they chanted “DDT! DDT! DDT!”
Vince McMahon saw it and shut the program down immediately. Hogan’s heroic image could not survive the audience cheering the man who laid him out. Jake’s momentum was killed to protect the top guy. From that point forward, Jake became a tool to build others rather than a contender for the title.
Jake never forgave the decision. He believed Hogan protected his spot at the expense of everyone beneath him.
#1: Grizzly Smith – The Father Who Raped His Mother and Sabotaged His Son
Everything else on this list was professional. Number one was personal from the moment Jake was conceived.
Jake has stated that his very existence began in violence: his father, Aurelian “Grizzly” Smith, raped his 14-year-old mother. Jake was the result. Grizzly brought the wrestling business home in the worst possible way — wearing a neck brace around the house to sell kayfabe injuries to his own children.
When Jake entered the business, he did it hoping for his father’s approval. Instead, Grizzly went to promoters and quietly worked against his own son. No guidance. No support. Only sabotage.
Jake has also spoken publicly about his belief that his father sexually abused multiple minors, including his own siblings. The darkness Jake brought to the ring was never manufactured. It was inherited.
The Man Who Survived Them All
Jake Roberts carried every one of these wounds — broken bones, stolen money, political ceilings, and the original trauma that started it all. The business gave him a stage. These ten people gave him the reasons to hate.
Yet Jake is still here. Sober. Speaking. Telling the truth in a business that taught him from birth that honesty was dangerous. Diamond Dallas Page’s accountability crib and genuine friendship helped pull him through the other side.
The wrestling business produced the cruelty, the politics, the unsafe environments, and the exploitation. It also produced Jake Roberts — and Jake Roberts survived every single one of them.
If any name on this list hit you harder than the others, drop it in the comments. And if you made it this far, you already know what Jake would want you to do: keep it real.
