WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts took to an episode of his Snake Pit podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including his first impressions of working with Stan Hansen.
Roberts said, “I crossed my path with him in Louisiana… [I recall] being scared to death.”
On his first match with Hansen:
“Yeah, it was a bad experience… There were about 20 Japanese photographers there, because Stan was touring Japan all the time and they sent these photographers over there to get footage of him in the States. And it just so happened that he was wrestling me. Well, my finish at the time was the knee-lift. And I gave him a knee-lift, close to the ropes. The referee went down, ‘One, two’ — and Stan put his foot up, but he missed the rope. ‘Two, three.’ So now all these photographers are taking pictures of me beating Hanson. Hanson sprung to his feet, grabbed the referee by his hair, and s**t-canned him over the top row. The guy didn’t get close to grabbing the rope. He wound up in the third row.”
“Then he turns around, sees me, and he just comes over and clubs me. Shoots me into the ropes and he gives me that friggin’ clothesline from hell in the mouth. Oh, it just ripped my f**king neck off, man. Oh god. I went down and rolled outside in the ring, and a fan comes over and gives me his chair. He said, ‘Here Jake, go back in there with the chair.’ I looked at the chair and I looked at Stan and said, ‘F**k you, man.’ Threw it down and left… You could hear him screaming in the other locker room.”
On Hansen working while he was legally blind:
“Yeah, he’d shoot you in and then you’d see him looking for you. And you’re like five feet away. He’s got the arm cocked back, and as soon as he sees you man, he just launches that thing.”
On whether working with someone who had limited vision changes how to work a match:
“Not really, no. You just kind of go out there and feel your way through it. I mean, I wrestled George Weingeroff, who was legally blind. I wrestled him probably 20 times. And it was quite interesting. You know, he would give you stuff by touching your arm… he communicated by touch.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
