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Jake Roberts Recalls Promoters Being Blind To Vince McMahon Taking WWE National
Image Credit: WWE
On the latest episode of The Snake Pit with Jake Roberts, the WWE Hall of Famer talked about Black Saturday on July 14th, 1984, when Vince McMahon bought Georgia Championship Wrestling’s timeslot on TBS and aired WWE content instead. This led to a backlash among fans, with WWE being ousted from the time slot within a few weeks. You can check out some highlights below:
On whether people knew about Vince McMahon buying TV time on local stations: “I don’t think anybody did. I think everybody thought that the territory they were in was gonna be okay. I guess we were kind of blind sheep, you know, just following the leader. And of course the promoter, he’s talking his side up, he doesn’t want to lose anybody. So he’s talking to his side about, ‘New things are coming down the pike, so don’t worry about it. We got this, we got this.’ It’s all bulls**t.”
On local promoters not seeing the same vision of going national as WWE: “Nobody’s seen the possibilities or the big picture. The big picture now, man, is not how many people are watching your television. It’s how much product are you selling? That’s where the money’s at. Nobody did that. Nobody had fingers wrestling figures, or dolls, or whatever you want to call them. You know, it was all very small time bulls**t.”
On how he viewed McMahon ending the territories: “I definitely resented it, man. Because it put a lot of people out of work. And he gave a lot of jobs too, I get that. But it put a lot of wrestlers out of work, you know. And in the territories, man, that’s where you learned. It takes time to become a great wrestler. You know, that’s the problem today. These young kids get into wrestling and after a month or a year in a training camp, they’re expected to go out and perform at a high level. It’s just impossible to do, to do it right, anyway. It’s cheating your way to the top.”
On how the wrestlers viewed The Briscoes for selling their portion of the promotion to WWE: “I don’t think there was a whole lot of heat there. I know I had none. I mean, I understood. If I was getting my f**king money, I’d be wanting to do something else too. And it was about business.”
On the locker room reaction to the move: “I don’t remember because I was so f**king mad, man. I just stormed out of there.”
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.
