Falls Count Anywhere

09-29-08

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The big news revolves around little things showing bigger problems. There was the death of Evan Tanner after going off into the desert to do the whole Man v. Nature thing. That opened up a lot of talk about fighters with quirky personalities needing to be looked at more closely.

There was the announcement that Konnan’s case against TNA was going to arbitration instead of trial, which made folks think you can’t win against even the second tier Big Boy Promotions and that lawsuits are dead-ends, for the time being.

Then there was the talk about Ken Shamrock and Kimbo Slice perhaps being the first seed that leads to more states taking a look at the age of performers for MMA and taking stronger steps to keep guys who were once names from putting themselves in harm’s way specifically for a big payday. It’s interesting that none of these became even bigger, but one story broke huge.

Jake Roberts fell off the wagon.

I heard about it first in the Observer and went looking around for video. I found it and a little piece of me died inside. I used to love Jake Roberts, and having seen him in the terrible state in Beyond The Mat was terrible sad. I’d heard that he’d really pulled his life together and recently had shown up looking much better than he had since the 1990s when he was working in Mexico. Even better than he had looked during his WWF run. That was about a year ago, when he left rehab, paid for by the McMahons.

The video showed Jake looking awful. Completely out of shape, sounding like he had drank a bottle of paint thinner and washed it down with some cocaine, which I believe is called a Little Dutch Boy.

It's not under control.

He did an incoherent promo from ringside and then he got in the ring. He climbed in the ring, then his opponent came out and attacked him. Jake sold it a little, but he might have just been staggering around and not really selling. The guy got him into the corner and Jake just collapsed under the weight of his own intoxication. There was a hilarious, and sickeningly sad, moment right after Jake fell and the guy just looked at him on the ground for a moment. He was so confused and that led to the other guy getting a few different pin attempts, the first two pro wrestling style and then an amateur arm tie-up that allowed him to get the pin. That ended the match and then the guy took the mic and said that Jake was this-and-that and so many other phrases that can’t be printed here.

The video is really brutal. I’ve seen Roberts doing drunken interviews before (There are a couple of classic ones on YouTube) and this was way beyond that. Hell, his drunken, slurring interview from Casino Magic was even very entertaining in a way. This was sick.

After that, the promoter got in the ring and tried to get him to DDT him and Jake was either trying to cooperate and just didn’t have the coordination or wasn’t trying to help. It’s hard to tell.

There are also videos of the events after the show. Where the promoter got on him. Hard. Jake was upset, and it’s more obvious that he’s awesomely drunk. His fans are all around and hearing the two of them argue.

Jake’s said many times that he knows the business is toxic but he can’t do anything else. There are a lot of guys who have learned this the hard way, typically moments before the line on the EKG goes flat. If you have to choose between Jake and Scott Hall, you have to go with Jake because his recent problems have been much more public than the ones that we’ve heard from Hall (yeah, there’ve been a couple reported, though they don’t make headlines anymore) and Jake has obviously taken the wrong road again. Do I want him to retire? Yes. Do I think he can? Not a chance.

There’s not a lot of money in the Indies, which is what Jake’s only able to get right now. He’s had decades of experience and he’s not able to go in another direction. He could probably make a living doing spot shows here and there, but he’ll always be facing the same demons and even if he can stay sober most of the time, he’s gonna fall off the wagon once in a while.

There’s no pension plan for wrestlers. Most have made a fair bit of money over the years, at least the guys who were on top, in the big leagues in recent decades. The ones who are smart with their money are lucky. There are guys who can walk away because they’ve got the money to walk away.

In fact, some guys do better once they leave the scene. JBL makes more off of his investments than he does as a wrestler, according to many sources. Guys like Jack Brisco can leave and do well. Booker T has lots of outside interests, and he could leave the scene, but he doesn’t. There’s something else there that makes it impossible.

And when you don’t have the money to leave, it’s a whirlpool that’s impossible to get out of. That’s where Jake is and that’s the saddest part.

Chris Garcia