10 Wrestlers Who Suffered For Being Too Good

1. Jake Roberts

Zack Ryder
WWE.com

While newer wrestling fans will be familiar with Jake Roberts as the mouthpiece of AEW's Lance Archer, Jake the Snake was a pivotal piece of the WWE jigsaw during the company's huge boom of the the 1980s and into the '90s.

Roberts had spells of being an effective babyface, yet his days as one of the most despicable heels in the business consistently served up pro wrestling gold. Not gold in the form of championship belts, of course, but more Roberts' psychology and his approach to promos made for gold in the sense of delivering a pro wrestling product that had you absolutely hooked to whatever Jake did.

Famously, Jake Roberts was set to venture into the mega-money territory of a feud with Hulk Hogan at the peak of Hulkamania running wild, brother.

That was back in 1986 when heels would sell their own grandparents to get a main event run with Hogan, for the financial gains of such a run could be life-changing. For Roberts, that chance was yanked away from him after WWE tested the waters of such a feud during the taping of a Snake Pit segment.

On that episode of Roberts' talk show, Jake dropped Hogan with his patented DDT as a way to start what would be a long-standing heated rivalry consisting of PPV main events. So good was Jake at what he did, though, the in-attendance audience cheered the sight of Roberts laying out the Hulkster.

That DDT never aired on TV, with Vince McMahon completely dropping the rivalry for fear of audiences turning on his golden goose babyface of Hulk Hogan.

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Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.