Stream-of-consciousness YouTube Review #1

WHERE to start? Where to start? How about we kick off this rasslin' orgy of fun-ness with the disturbingly homoerotic Blackjack Mulligan & Joe Savoldi are against suicide? Watch this 1986 public service ad and tell me it doesn't look like BJ is giving "Jumping" Joe a good reason to jump? :O

From there we skip to a 1986 instalment of Jake Roberts' The Snake Pit in the WWF where the vicious one - recently turned babyface - interviews Blackjack Mulligan and they talk about.......WWF ice-cream bars?!? It's a rare moment when someone can one-up Jake on an interview, but good ol' BJ does it here. This may be one of the more surreal moments in Jake's ultra-surreal life.

So we're off and running on a Jake "The Snake" Roberts theme. Let's see him at the height of his creative genius: talking to those PWI geeks on an episode of Georgia Championship Wrestling in the early 80s. At this point, Jake was a member of "Precious" Paul Ellering's Legion Of Doom, along with the Road Warriors and King Kong Bundy, I believe. Jake was so awesome before he fucked himself up on drugs. No-one exuded such pure slimy evil as "The Snake". Yet, at the same time, this interview comes across as refreshingly honest and open. Jake is a businessman - a nasty businessman who likes hurting Ronnie Garvin in the ring, but there's nothing personal. It's all about the money, baby.

Now we leap forward to the notorious Legends Of Wrestling PPV from 1999 and we can see how far Jake had fallen. First up, there's this erm...interesting interview where an extremely intoxicated and/or high Roberts tries to insult his opponent Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart. Not a lot makes sense here except:

"You don't want to play cards with me because I cheat. Okay? I cheat. You wanna play 21? I've got 22. You want to play blackjack? I've got two of those, too!"

Let's stick with the PPV. OK, I'm two beers in and getting both tipsy and surly. Not unlike Jake...although by this stage in the night he'd had about 22 more beers than me. While Jim waits in the ring for his opponent, Jake staggers to ringside for the PPV's main event. He takes forever to get there, deposits his pet python in the corner, then heads back up the ramp. While the commentators try to cover this embarrassment, Jake re-emerges at ringside minus his T-shirt. It's not a pretty sight. Y'know, once, Jake Roberts wore some pretty cool ring tights. Twenty years and 50kg down the road, he's reduced to wearing tracksuit pants. Mmmmm, not a good look. So.....Jake spots a female fan at ringside and decides it's a good idea to stagger over, grab her hands and rub them against his nipples. This is getting revolting. Can I endure the match itself? Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooo.......I'm tapping out to this debacle and calling it quits for the night. Bye Jake.