Jake Roberts On His Issues With Ole Anderson, Mid-Atlantic Paydays

On the latest episode of The Snake Pit with Jake Roberts, the WWE Hall of Famer talked about joining Mid-Atlantic Wrestling after leaving Mid-South in 1981. You can check out some highlights below:

On dealing with Jim Crockett Jr: “They were rough. Yeah, I didn’t fit in there. You know, I was one of those guys that… I was on the B team.”

On Mid-Atlantic paydays: “Yeah, out of a year. That meant I was in Charleston, South Carolina, which is not a fun place to be. The lack of fans [what’s wrong about working there]. There was a guarantee, but I think it was $40 [per match]. In all fairness, I wasn’t ready for a big territory like this; I had never negotiated anything. I’d never had to go in and talk for my job. And I wasn’t good at that. By choice.”

On whether he had prior talks with Crockett: “First time meeting him when I got there. That’s right, it’s really foolish on my part.”

On dealing with Ole Anderson booking the company: “He came to Louisiana to watch me wrestle and then brought me in. And I expected him to do things with me. He did fucking nothing for me. Just put me in tag matches on television. That was it. You know, didn’t shoot an angle with me. Didn’t do anything.”

On why he didn’t like Ole Anderson: “Ole knew how to book himself, and that’s what he did well. But he didn’t know how to book everybody else. He didn’t have a clue, you know? And his idea of a match is to go out there and fight and then have a run-in, huh? F**k, man. It was so bad that people during the match, whenever it got really heated, people quit watching the match and would turn and look to the back to see who was going to run in. That’s how bad it got, man. He knew how to book himself, but after that, not so much. He would say things to you, and you had to be careful how you come back because he would tell you, ‘Be careful what you say, kid, or you’ll be in f**king Charleston the rest of your life. So it’s like, ‘Okay, I gotta shut my fucking mouth.’ I didn’t like him, but big deal.”

On the fight between Blackjack Mulligan and Anderson: “My favorite guy was Blackjack Mulligan because Mulligan went into the office to talk to Ole. And he made an appointment to talk to Ole. And when he went, Ole started to say something, Mulligan knocked him out. Waited for him to wake up, and, ‘I came in here to talk. Let me talk’. And so he started talking and Ole interrupted him again. And when he did, Mulligan knocked him out again. So he knocked him out twice in one conversation.”

On what Ole booked well: “He was good at f**king things. Booking himself by being able to manage everybody else. You get to leave earlier.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Snake Pit with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.