Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts knew better than to get on the bad side of WWE’s first Hall of Famer Andre the Giant.
During the latest episode of his “The Snake Pit” podcast, Roberts spoke about working with Andre and when Big John Studd got on the wrong side of him.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On Big John Studd: “We called him Big John Dud. [laughs] He was thick, you know. I love the guy, don’t get me wrong. I loved the guy, I had no problems with him. He made a big mistake whenever he said what he did about Andre being a freak. He did an interview where he said Andre wasn’t a giant, he was a freak. And Andre took offense to that, and that was it. The s**t hit the fan. And every time Andre got around him, he just beat the f**king s**t out of him. It was horrible, man. Hell, when we did that damn match in Atlantic City, and he was the referee. God damn, I was hoping I didn’t get hurt because Andre hit him so hard his body exploded and one of his body parts hit me or something. You know, Jake Roberts killed by a kidney, you know?”
On not being on the good side of Andre The Giant: “It’s not good to be on Andre’s [bad] side. I mean, Iron Sheik experienced that. Randy Savage experienced that. Randy was scared of the death of Andre, and rightly so. Jesus Christ, man. You know, I had an experience with Andre that wasn’t good. We had just done the thing where he was scared of the snake, and our first match was in LA and we got in the ring, and he absolutely guzzled me. He hammered me, he guzzled me, didn’t give me a f**king thing, man. Fifteen minutes of me getting my ass kicked. Well, it was so bad that when I got to the back, the agents were standing there going, ‘Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.’ Looking at me, and I’m f***king mad as s**t going, ‘F**k this s**t. I’m not playing this f**king s**t. I’m not doing it.’ I said, ‘Where the f**k is he?’ And they said, ‘Well, he’s in his dressing room. You’re not going in there, are you?’ ‘You’re f**king right I am!’
On it being intimidating to stand up to Andre: “Oh brother, you have no idea man! I’d go to throw a punch and he’d catch my punch in his fist like a baseball mitt, you know? And it f**king hurt too, you know?… I figured I could outrun him. And I already made up my mind that if we were gonna continue like that, I wasn’t f**king doing it. I’ll just get outta the f**king ring and walk away, because we’re not giving them a show. We’re giving ’em s**t. And that was my whole thing that, ‘Hey, those people weren’t f**king entertained. They’re disgusted.’”
On if John Studd could have confronted Andre: “Sure. I think if he’d have gone to a man to man, you know, and said, ‘Yo, straight up. Hey, I said something really f**king stupid Andre, and I’m really sorry.’ You had to earn his respect. If you earned his respect, you were okay.”
