Jake Roberts wasn’t called ‘the Snake’ solely due to his snake-like behavior and general deceptiveness. He earned this nickname by literally carrying live snakes with him in a bag to the ring.
For many years, Roberts’ snake Damien was as big a part of his matches and segments as he was.
But as the years went by, Roberts began appearing solo more often. He got in trouble animal neglect one time because he forgot to feed his snake.
And as a general rule, the use of animals in pro-wrestling has been mostly phased out in recent times, with very few exceptions.
Given Roberts’ history with snakes, some have wondered if he were to ever turn back time and use a snake again.
Well, it turns out that Roberts has an answer to that query in the form of an unusual pitch he made to AEW’s creative team
Jake Roberts wanted to have an animatronic snake with him in AEW
Speaking on his Snake Pit podcast, Roberts explained that he pitched a new idea to AEW’s creative team. Instead of using a live snake like he did in the past, Roberts suggested imitating what WWE did with Eric Rowan and hit pet spider and have an animatronic snake instead.
“To have the snake move like a snake and come up and open its mouth and all that sh*t … I would love that. I wouldn’t mind traveling with that, put it in a small suitcase and throw it overhead.”
However, the idea never came to fruition because of the incredible cost to make the snake look realistic and move in a believable way.
Aside from Jake Roberts and his snakes, there have been many examples of animals being used in pro wrestling over the decades. Some of these have included:
- Terrible Ted the wrestling bear
- Japanese deathmatches involving glass containers with piranhas or scorpions inside
- Stu Hart wrestled a tiger when he ran the original Stampede Wrestling
- WWE has used live pigs for Hog Pen matches
- The Kennel from Hell match between Al Snow and The Big Bossman included real Rottweilers
- Mascot animals like the British Bulldogs’ bulldog Matilda, Koko B Ware’s macaw Frankie
- Teddy Hart attempting to train cats and dogs to interact with him and his opponent(s) in wrestling matches
h/t WrestlingInc for the transcription