Rants

Jake The Heel

By Scott Keith on August 25, 2018

The thread about the potential of a Piper/Jake feud got me wondering…..was keeping Jake a face for all those years a missed opportunity?

Sure, he was a very popular face, and the argument was that he was turned good-guy in first place because he was so cool he was even being cheered against Hogan.

But when you consider how completely loathed Jake was in 1991, and what an absolutely molten-hot feud he had with Savage, one wonders what kind of huge money a heel Jake Roberts could've drawn earlier in his WWF run, before he became completely unreliable due to his additions.

I find it hard to believe that Jake couldn't have made a feud with Hogan work. Maybe that was the answer to Hogan's post-WM3, "he's beaten Andre so nobody is a credible opponent" slump — a guy whose strengths were psychological, and he had one absolutely killer finisher that not even Hogan could escape.

Beyond that, you could have Jake vs. Savage earlier, during the Macho Man's first title run. Jake vs. Piper, Jake. vs Ultimate Warrior, Jake vs. Dusty Rhodes….it seems like Roberts had more potential value as an upper-card heel than as a midcard face, albeit a very popular midcard face.

Problem is that you're always fighting against the fans then. The whole reason why Jake was turned is that people were cheering him too much, and the DDT was so over as a finisher that people were gonna cheer THAT because it was so cool regardless of anything else Jake did as a character. As awesome of a heel that Jake was, the path of least resistance was the best way in this case.

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