Jake Roberts reflected about his father, former wrestler Grizzly Smith, in the most recent episode of the DDP Snake Pit. Jake Roberts’ relationship with his father was tumultuous to say the least, as shown in an episode of Vice TV’s Dark Side of the Ring’s third season.
My father never was around me much. You know, it wasn’t a good situation. Some bad things happened with his wife, (she) sexually abused me so I didn’t live with him. I wasn’t around him much at all. My father never came to a ball game, never came to graduation, none of that stuff. You know, I always wanted my father to love me. I mean, I dreamed every night of my father riding in to save me and be on a white steed, and come in and grab me and we ride off into the sunset. You know, ‘Shane, Shane, come back.’ Never happened.
So when I graduated high school, I made up my mind that I wanted to be an architect, that was my dream. But I was so pissed off that he had not come to my graduation because I was the first kid in our family to graduate high school, and I did it with honors. I went down to visit him in Louisiana and told him, ‘hey, I graduated high school, by the way. I know you missed it.’ ‘Yeah, I had to work.’ You know, that was always the word. He told me, ‘I hope you don’t want anything from me.’ He told me, ‘you’re going to college? Hope you don’t need anything from me.’
A few nights later, I went to a wrestling match and I was drinking heavily because I was angry my father had not given me the words I wanted. ‘I’m proud of you.’ That’s all I wanted. ‘I’m proud of you, son.’ You know? I want to be embraced, I want to be loved. And I went to the wrestling match and got drunk, and alcohol and youth and ignorance go hand-in-hand. So I wound up challenging a wrestler because I thought if I got in the ring and beat up a wrestler, my dad would have to be proud of me. I was 18, man, I was ready to go. Alcohol makes you ready to go anyway. Thank God the guy knew who I was because he could’ve really hurt me. Instead, he stretched me for about 10 minutes, made me piss myself, made me pass out, did all sorts of horrible things to me.
And basically, I crawl back to the locker room, crying. And my father looked down at me and he said, ‘you’re gutless. I’m ashamed of you and you’ll never amount to anything,’ and walked away. I remember that night still like yesterday. I went back to his house, lay in bed, and prayed to the devil because I didn’t think God should let anything happen like that. And I prayed to the devil I’d do anything for him if he helped me get to the top and helped my father eat his words. And I told my father I was going to get into wrestling and he laughed at me. ‘Are you kidding me?’ He took me out to the backyard, gave me three chops. I still remember. Told me I don’t have the guts for it.
Roberts discussed why he was never close to his father as a child and the one thing he desired from Smith but never received. Jake Roberts challenged a wrestler to a fight one night when he was 18 because of his father’s disapproval, which resulted in him being stretched out. As a result of his father’s reaction, Roberts decided to pursue a career as a professional wrestler.