Jake Roberts Recalls How DDTing Ricky Steamboat On Concrete Elevated His Career
On a recent episode of his “The Snake Pit” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts discussed his feud with Ricky Steamboat in WWF.
Roberts recalled nailing Steamboat with a DDT on concrete and how the incident springboarded his career in the business.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On DDTing Steamboat on concrete: “I was never brought with a plan. The first thing I heard about it was when we went to Saturday Night Main Event. They laid it out to us and I said wait, wait, wait, wait, I can’t DDT him on the floor. I said it’ll f******* kill him and they’re like ‘Well, that’s what we really want.’ So they left for us for me and Steamboat to talk to talk and I just kept telling Ricky it can’t be done. I’m telling you it cannot be done. If I do that to you it’s going to f*** you up really bad. He’s like ‘No, no, no. I’ll put my hands down in time. I’ll block it.’ No, Ricky you won’t. You just don’t have time to do it. He was real adamant about wanting to do it. He owed a favor to George Scott the booker at the time under Vince.
“Ricky had gotten his first big break in professional wrestling in Charlotte from George Scott. George Scott’s the one that took the chance and gave him an opportunity to become a star. Which, in Charlotte if you’re lucky, you have to be extremely lucky to get a break in Charlotte. Believe me, I know I wrestled there for years and never got a break. They just didn’t do it never pulled the trigger. Just left me in bedlam right there in the middle of the card doing nothing, It’s very hard to impress people when you’re not out there with people that you can impress with. But, here I’ve got Steamboat. I’ve got Steamboat and an opportunity to blow me to the top of the pile real quick and we’re going to do it with one move and that one moves the DDT, but they wanted to do it on the concrete floor. There were no pads down anywhere. They want to do it on the concrete floor and it’s just impossible to do on the concrete floor. I know I had tried things before like DDT somebody on a chair. That doesn’t work either, by the way. Ask Terry Taylor he got cut open pretty bad.”
On his first conversation with Steamboat after the incident: “Well, I was apologizing too, but man I told you we couldn’t do it. I f******* told you and he agreed (laughs).”
On the incident elevating Jake’s career: “Jake’s a killer that what they thought, you know. Jake’s a killer and he catapulted from being on the first couple of matches to the main event overnight. I can never thank Ricky enough because he basically helped me build my house.”
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