WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts recently spoke on his podcast, “the Snake Pit,” about a variety of professional wrestling topics including Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart.
Roberts was asked, “Who’s the better worker and why? Shawn Michaels or Bret Hart?”
Jake responded, “Neither. What for? Better performer? Shawn. Bret just gets dull at times. His interviews aren’t up to par, I don’t think, to what they should be for what position he held. I think his interviews were poor, at best.”
His co-host, Marcus DeAngelo asked, “As for their styles in the ring though, like, you just didn’t really care for either one?
Jake replied, “They were part of that era that quit selling things, you know, and just did everything. I will give it to Bret that he did wrestle a lot more than Shawn. Bret to me just, oh boy, I’m gonna get myself in trouble here. He just wasn’t a champion to me. There I said it. Neither one of them.”
DeAngelo added, “And do you base that on personality? Their styles?’
Jake replied, “Styles, size, everything. They were much smaller than what we’ve been accustomed to, and you know, neither one of them looked like Bruno.”
DeAngelo said, “Let’s put it into context a little bit. You’re coming from the era when it was like gangbusters, red hot, out of control, and then all of a sudden, Bret Hart is made champion. I’m not saying that there’s a direct line here, but he’s made champion and then it’s like, sales are way, way down. Houses are way down. Everything is way down. Maybe it was a downtime. Maybe it was a downtime in the business. Maybe we just didn’t have the right guy as the flag-bearer for the company.”
Jake responded, “That’s what I think it was. Shawn didn’t set nothing on fire either.”
DeAngelo said, “I’ll play the other side of it. In between them, Kevin Nash was the champion and he’s a big guy with a great look, but like, maybe it was just a down time. I don’t know”
Jake added, “Well, if you get drugged down far enough, it takes a while to get back up.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
