Jake Roberts Gives Worrying Update On Health Of Ricky Steamboat

Jake Roberts has spoken on recent health issues Ricky Steamboat is dealing with, hoping that it isn’t linked back to an incident between the two many years ago.

First appearing for WWE in March 1986, Jake Roberts defeated George Wells in his pay-per-view debut at WrestleMania II before moving on to feud with Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat.

The rivalry between the two stepped up a notch when ‘The Snake’ gave Steamboat a DDT on the concrete floor during an episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event.

Speaking on the latest episode of his DDP Snake Pit podcast with Diamond Dallas Page, Jake Roberts discussed how he didn’t want to do the move in the first place, but Steamboat along with others talked him round.

Bottom line is you cannot be down on a hard surface. If it’s a hard surface, you’re going to splatter your brains. Back in my drinking days I did it a few times in bars and other stuff. I got in trouble in there. And they didn’t get up. Even when I did it to Hogan on a platform, which has a lot of give, but it didn’t have enough because it split Hogan’s skull.

I’m not going to tell you the guys who suggested it to me. I was told by these guys to pick somebody out of the locker room and DDT them on the concrete, intentionally, in hopes of killing. I was like ‘what?’ They were like ‘dude, you’ll be the most over heel ever.’ ‘I don’t want to kill somebody, what are you talking about?’ They encouraged me to do it, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.

Doing Steamboat, I argued in the back ‘no, it cannot be done.’ And Steamboat had the affiliation with George Scott, who had been the booker in Mid Atlantic and gave Steamboat his big break. And George went to Steamboat with that idea, of me dropping him on the concrete. And Steamboat argued me ‘please man, do it for me. I can block it, I can get my hands down in time.’ ‘No you won’t, it won’t work.

When Steamboat’s head hit the floor, Jake Roberts feared he had killed his opponent who had been knocked unconscious.

And it didn’t work. When I dropped Steamboat, I thought he was dead, I really did. Picking up, it was like ‘holy sh*t.’ I herniated myself getting him into the ring. If you watch that film, you’ll see me pointing at Steamboat and point at George Scott, because George Scott had come down and gotten in the ring.

I was like ‘there George, I hope your freakin’ happy because he’s dead.’ I was surprised he wasn’t, because where his head hit, it was a god-awful sound. It was like a watermelon being thrown on concrete. It popped like something broke. It took two weeks for his eyes to turn black. It swelled up four inches.

Jake Roberts went on to say that Steamboat is currently dealing with some health issues, and that he hopes it is nothing to do with that moment.

To be quite honest with you, I know Steamboat’s having issues right now. I hope to hell it wasn’t what I did. I really do man, because that haunts me. That’s beginning to haunt me a lot. Ricky, if you’re listening, you know I never meant to do that. I didn’t want to do that. I begged you not to do that. I just pray for you man. He’s a good dude man.

Roberts recently also talked about a fellow former WWE superstar he feels should be inducted to the Hall Of Fame.

With thanks to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.