Jake Roberts is one of the most critically-acclaimed promo cutters in the history of pro wrestling and has often been cited as having a great mind as well. Now, he is bringing that expertise to All Elite Wrestling.
In a new interview with Sportskeeda, Jake discusses how he ended up in AEW and is giving the full credit to AEW President Tony Khan.
“My name kept getting brought up by people, but it was actually [Tony] Khan that said ‘I want him in here.’ That's quite a compliment there. That's not the way I expected to be brought in, I expected it to be through Dallas or through Dustin [Rhodes], but it wasn't, it was Khan who wanted me in there,” Jake revealed. “I did the little card-dealing gimmick I did for them [at Double Or Nothing], that was just a nice thing to do, where I dealt the cards out for that thing they were doing. But then to get invited to do this angle (with Lance Archer and Cody Rhodes) was much bigger. It's going to be huge. We haven't really started it yet. It's yet to blossom into what it's going to be. We're going to do some more stuff this week. They've gone back to the old-school way of doing things, which I love. That's building something instead of doing it the WWE way where they build it the first part of the show and then end it by the end of the show. (laughs) This, people will remember, because they're taking the time to build it properly.
Continuing on, Jake also spoke about mentoring some of the younger names in the locker room. On-screen, he is paired with Lance Archer, but there are younger names on the roster with less experience and Jake has extended his hand to many of them.
“There's a couple that have come [for mentoring]. I put my hand out, I went to each guy and said, ‘Look, man, I'm here for you. This ain't about me, I'm here for you. If there's any way I can help, if there's any questions I can answer, please come to me,’” Jake recalls. “I've only had two people come to me. One of them had something that they really wanted to talk about and I was able to help them with interviews. I got them going in the right direction, anyway. I felt really good about that, he's a young kid. His dad was a wrestler, "Mr. Ass" Billy Gunn. It was Billy Gunn's son [Austin] that came to me and wanted help. That really made me feel good, man. His dad is a superstar and Hall of Famer in his own right and you're coming to me? I get that. Sometimes it's easier to ask someone else that isn't your dad... It was easy for me, my dad didn't want to help.”
Jake's client, Lance Archer, is set to make his debut on the April 1 edition of AEW Dynamite on TNT.
