Jake Roberts Discusses Vince McMahon Dropping His Feud With Hulk Hogan Due to Fan Reaction

– On the latest edition of the DDP Snake Pit podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jake Roberts discussed how it appeared that WWE was gearing up a feud between Jake Roberts and Hulk Hogan at one point in the 1980s. However, Vince McMahon ultimately dropped the idea because fans started cheering for Roberts over Hogan, which was not the reaction WWE wanted. You can see highlights from the discussion below, per Wrestling Inc:

Roberts on Vince McMahon dropping the match because fans were chanting for him: “I walk off the set to the back, Vince grabs me and hugs me, ‘oh Jake this is going to be magnificent! Oh God, the money you guys are going to make.’ And I’m sitting there going, ‘finally, finally my dream man, it’s happening, thank you, Jesus. I’m pissing myself. I’m so happy. He says, ‘stay right here with me’. I go, ‘what for?’ He goes, ‘the people, they’ll start chanting Hulk, Hulk Hulk. He’s going to come to his feet, he’ll rip his t-shirt off, he’ll scream, beat his chest, and he’ll come looking for you. We’re talking about going straight to the bank with all of this. Jake, thank you.’ And he shakes my hand. We stand there and we stand there. Then Vince starts to look around like what the hell is going on. He looks out, Hogan’s waiting for the people to start chanting. The people did. They started chanting, ‘DDT, DDT’. And Vince went, ‘you’re screwed’. ‘What do you mean I’m screwed?’ He goes, ‘that’s not what we want.”

On his live event matches with Hulk Hogan selling out tickets: “So they gave us a couple of shots, they sent us to Portland, Maine, sold out, set the record. Went to Montreal, sold out when it hadn’t been sold out in years there before. Sold it out, turned them away, no cameras. Here’s what happened in the matches. ‘DDT, DDT’. Vince says, ‘that’s it, no more’. ‘What do you mean no more, we’re sold out, we turned away people’. He goes, ‘I don’t give a d-mm, that’s not what it’s about’. How much better can you get than a sellout? The WWE didn’t care about sellouts. It’s all about marketing, that’s where the money’s at. Vince used to say he didn’t give a sh-t how many people came to the building.”