Jake "The Snake" Roberts has had one of the most tumultuous careers in professional wrestling history. On Six Feet Under with Mark Callaway, Roberts revealed how a WCW contract dispute triggered his worst personal spiral—and ultimately fueled his cocaine addiction.
In 1992, Roberts had negotiated a multi-million dollar deal with WCW's Kip Frye. However, before he could sign, Vince McMahon enforced a 90-day no-compete clause as part of his WWF exit. When Roberts' non-compete expired, Frye was gone, and Bill Watts had taken over WCW.
Watts discarded Roberts' original contract and offered him a fraction of the deal, telling him:
You and I both know you can't go back. You're gonna take what we give you.
Roberts accepted, but WCW then stripped him of his signature gimmick by banning his snake.
They took my gimmick away. Now I'm back to zero. What the f*** can I do?" he recalled.
That was the breaking point. "That right there pushed me off the deep end, brother. I really dug into the coke after that."
Roberts acknowledged that his subsequent 20-year cocaine addiction nearly killed him, but at the time, he was just trying to cope with the loss of his career.
Not many people have a 20-year cocaine career... by the grace of God, I'm not dead.
His exit from WCW triggered years of struggles with substance abuse, financial problems, and personal demons. Looking back, Roberts recognizes that wrestling politics and addiction were his greatest adversaries.
Jealousy in wrestling has killed more people than war ever has," he said.
Roberts' story illustrates how a single career setback can have devastating personal consequences—and how the wrestling industry has often failed to protect its biggest stars.
